


Blood for Blood

by TheStarkster



Series: Rise of Chaos [2]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Awesome Reyna Avila Ramírez-Arellano, BAMF Annabeth Chase (Percy Jackson), Camp Half-Blood (Percy Jackson), Camp Jupiter (Percy Jackson), Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, F/M, Gen, M/M, Original Character Death(s), Original Character-centric, Part 2 of the series, Rated T for swearing, Reyna-centric, Swearing, bamf everyone really, do not copy to another site, very little
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:47:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 28,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28144095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheStarkster/pseuds/TheStarkster
Summary: 'The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.'~old English saying~But is it?Continuing the events of Rise of Chaos, the demigods must now try and stop the world from collapsing... again. New allies are found, secrets are revealed, and nothing is as it seems.
Relationships: Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson, Calypso/Leo Valdez, Hazel Levesque/Frank Zhang, Nico di Angelo & Hazel Levesque, Nico di Angelo & Reyna Avila Ramírez-Arellano, Nico di Angelo/Will Solace
Series: Rise of Chaos [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1915033
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	1. Chapter I

**Author's Note:**

> So... I'm back, just like I promised. I don't know how good this one is, but hey, if you're still here after the first one, *shrugs*. I'm determined to finish this, actually. I mean, this just won't leave me alone.  
> I'm going with the popular tumblr trope of Reyna being addicted to jellybeans. Also, I realized that Al and Leo as best buddies is a frightening combination (for everyone else).

**ANNABETH**

Annabeth felt a little sorry for Frank.

The Hunters had been in Wyoming a few days ago, and Thalia had immediately set out to Camp Jupiter along with three other Hunters. She had informed the Amazons about recent events, and Hylla had sent a letter to Reyna asking her what exactly was going on. Thalia and her Hunters had left for the East Coast soon after, promising to search Long Island and share whatever clues they found. Frank had to reply to Hylla’s letter, since Reyna was missing, and now the queen of the Amazons was sitting in front of the Praetors’ desk in the Principia, trying to gather information about the disappearance of one of the demigod camps (read: why the hell was her sister gone and why hadn’t she been informed for two whole weeks).

When Percy and Frank had said Hylla was much scarier than Reyna, Annabeth had assumed they were just joking. Now that Hylla was in front of her, she wasn’t so sure.

Reyna was Roman, plain and simple. If you whittled her away, she would be Roman to the core. Reyna reminded her of an ancient Roman warrior: taciturn, firm, unyielding, loyal to the last breath. Hylla reminded her of a panther: dark, graceful, but also dangerous, like she would burst into action suddenly like a jungle cat and leave you with your throats slashed open before you could blink. The black Amazon outfit and the golden belt only reinforced that image.

Judging by what Hazel, Percy and Thalia had told her, the relationship between the sisters was pretty complicated. Hylla had been the one to welcome her and Percy to Circe’s island, while Reyna combed her hair (she was still having trouble reconciling that image and the image of Reyna as a Praetor in her head), after which they’d been on a pirate ship and later parted ways in California. They hadn’t had any contact for over four years, but Hylla had still marched an Amazon army to New Rome on Reyna’s call, and Reyna had allowed herself to be kept as a bait for Orion so that Hylla could trap him (even though that plan failed). And now Hylla was here.

It was a little creepy how much she looked like Reyna. She was six years older, but they could definitely have passed for twins if it were not for the thin worry line on Hylla’s forehead, which Reyna was definitely going to get herself the longer she spent time as Praetor. The only difference was in the way they held themselves: Reyna in the straight, erect Roman fashion; Hylla like a panther crouched to spring. Reyna’s expression made it clear that she would allow no argument; Hylla’s eyes looked like they could see into the depths of your soul, daring you to start an argument. Hylla was only a bit like Reyna, perhaps with less restraint and more humor.

That humor wasn’t there now. She was sitting on one of the three-legged stools in front of the desk, one leg over the other, the iron tips of her combat boots glinting in the faint light.

She tapped a knife on her knee. “Long time no see, Praetor Zhang. You too, Annabeth Chase.”

Frank swallowed slightly. “It’s been a while.”

Annabeth shifted guiltily, remembering how she and Percy had set the pirates loose at Circe’s Island.

Hylla looked slightly amused at her reaction. “I’m glad to finally meet you. I mean, really meet you, not at some goddamned spa. I can see why Percy turned Kinzie down. Thank the gods he did. The son of Neptune would look absolutely ridiculous in an orange jumpsuit.”

Annabeth blinked. “What?”

Frank coughed. “On our quest to Alaska, we met an Amazon named Kinzie who wanted Percy to, you know, date her. The Amazons keep their men in collars and jumpsuits.”

Annabeth couldn’t help herself. “That’s horrible.”

Hylla shrugged. “I’m not fond of it either, but rules must. What about-”

Just then the door of the office burst open. A legionnaire in full armor, probably one on watch duty, rushed inside. “Praetor.” He gasped, trying to catch his breath. All he succeeded in was making a wheezing sound.

Frank rose from his seat. “What?”

The demigod looked up. “Praetor Reyna just entered the Caldecott tunnel.”

****************

Reyna definitely knew how to make an entrance.

A black Honda smashed through the side of the road into the entrance to the camp, becoming airborne for a few seconds before it crashed to the ground and screeched to a halt in front of the Little Tiber. It had long scratches all over, like it had been followed by monsters.

“Not your first car chase?” said the familiar voice.

“Won't be my last.” A new voice replied.

The driver’s door opened, and the Praetor of the Twelfth Legion stepped out, glancing at the crowd gathered around. Her eyes narrowed. The passenger door opened a moment later. The new demigod seemed to be around sixteen or seventeen, with short-cropped curly dark hair and twinkling brown eyes, and a revolver in her hand. She looked unsurely around herself.

Suddenly the crowd of legionnaires parted as excited barking could be heard. Aurum and Argentum leapt on top of Reyna, almost knocking her over as they licked her and danced around her feet, jumping around like excited puppies. They whined as Reyna crouched down to pet them, snuggling into either side of her.

“Well?” Reyna raised her eyebrows at the gathered Romans. “Is the world ending again?”

The legionnaires looked uncomfortably at each other.

“My disappearance was just a personal quest for Juno. Also, we have a new _Graecus_.” She pointed at the new demigod. “Who will be here until the situation with Camp Half-Blood is resolved.”

Suddenly the Bacchus kid who’d unleashed the wave of madness during the fight in the Caldecott tunnel pushed through the crowd. “Al?” she asked.

The new Greek looked at her in surprise. “What are you doing _here,_ kid?”

“What are _you_ doing here?” she retorted she pulled her into a hug. The new demigod, Al, returned the gesture and pulled away, grinning. “Sorry. Bold of me to assume you know what you’re doing wherever you might be. My fault.” The Bacchus kid punched her arm.

“I think we should all go back where we’re supposed to be.” Reyna interrupted. “I’m sure there will be more than enough time for gossip and catching-up at dinner.”

The legionnaires muttered among themselves, but they did as they were told. They liked Frank, but they respected Reyna and wouldn’t disobey a direct order from her, even when she was covered in dog drool. Reyna turned to them, her eyes widening in surprise. “Hylla?”

“That’s the third time in two years you’ve been in trouble, sister.” Hylla studied the knife in her hand. “I thought you had grown out of that phase.” She teased. “A damn waste of my time. I’m leaving after dinner.”

Reyna rolled her eyes while the new demigod looked amused. “Speaking of trouble, we need to talk.”

*********************

Annabeth studied Al with interest. When Nico had told them about Hades’ explanation for the disappearance of Camp Half-Blood, Annabeth had imagined two ancient godly warriors intent on destroying each other. Instead, Al looked almost ordinary, like a normal mortal pulled out of their home and dragged into this mess, clueless and confused.

Based on what they knew until now, Al could go both ways. At first glance, Al looked like any mortal, easy-going, non-threatening, but Annabeth noted the way her eyes seemed to notice every little thing about the Principia and the people around her, like she was reading random details about them and storing them for future reference. Al may be clueless, but she wasn’t a fool, and would make a dangerous enemy if it came down to it. She suddenly felt someone’s eyes on her. Al seemed to have noticed her gaze, and gave her a tiny nod of acknowledgement. _Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer._ Annabeth wasn’t sure which category Al fit into yet, but she wasn’t going to take any chances. She had learnt her lesson during the Titan War. Friendship was one thing, trust was another.

**********************

One week later, they still didn’t have any idea about the other champion.

Annabeth felt slightly less apprehensive of Al now. As far as she could see, Al bore no malice and plenty of mischief to anyone she met. Which meant, of course, that she and Leo had at once become best friends.

She almost chuckled when she remembered her meeting with Reyna that morning. Reyna had her head buried in a bunch of papers. Annabeth had assumed that she’d fallen asleep, and was about to leave, when Reyna groaned.

“Annabeth.” She raised her head from the table. “Remind me. Was I drunk six days ago?”

Annabeth had been confused. “No.”

“Was I drugged?”

“No, but-”

“Charmspoken? Insane? Suffering from dementia?”

Annabeth was starting to feel concerned now. “No, why?”

“Then why,” Reyna’s voice was hoarse. “ _Why_ in the name of Bellona did I introduce Al to Leo?”

Right on cue, a bunch of screams could be heard from outside the window. Reyna dropped her face back onto the papers.

Leo stepped in, hair sticking out wildly. “Hey, guys. So, I might have accidentally-”

******************

Hades told Nico that the two champions chose their path based on their personality. He hadn’t been sure about that part, but if it was true, then Al was an anomaly. Her messy hair, cheeky grin, mischievous eyes; all of them made her more likely to choose Chaos. On the other hand, Annabeth wasn’t going to judge someone based on appearance. Al spent a large part of her time in the camp library, systematically trying to learn Latin and get up to par with the myths. The rest was spent in learning to wield weapons and annoying the hell out of people around her along with Percy and Leo. A person of habits generally had a very orderly mind, which indicated Cosmos. It was frustrating.

Al got along with a lot of people, including Frank, Hazel, a pink-haired girl named Lavinia, the Bacchus kid whose name was Daisy (apparently, they knew each other from New York), and, surprisingly, Reyna. It could have been because of their common quest, but they were so different in behavior that Annabeth had assumed Reyna would try to strangle Al before the week was over. At least, that was how it happened with Leo. That was one incident they didn’t need a repeat of.

She was walking along with Reyna to the Praetors’ office to try and sort out reports from nature spirits to piece together where Camp Half-Blood might be. Frank was sitting behind the desk, looking slightly put out, like a grumpy Chinese Buddha. “What’s the matter, Frank?”

Frank sighed. “Nothing. Just hungry.”

Reyna rolled her eyes. “Bombilo’s is open.”

Frank shrugged. “Just lazy.”

That got their attention. Frank was clumsy, but he wasn’t lazy. Reyna looked at the stacks of paper arranged neatly on the desk. “You have placed everything very… systematically today. What did you do?”

Frank shifted guiltily in his seat. “I might have made a bet. And lost. Your jellybeans.”

Reyna’s eyes narrowed. “A bet?”

Frank suddenly seemed interested in his fingers. “More like a game. Poker.”

Reyna was staring out of the window. “Was the said poker game with Al? And Leo? Perhaps Percy?”

Frank nodded.

Reyna stormed over to the door and wrenched it open. She disappeared for a second, reappearing with Leo and Al held by their collars like mischievous kittens. It was weird, considering the fact that Al was taller than her. She let them go and crossed her arms. “Al.” she growled. “Valdez.”

“Praetor.” Al gave her an innocent smile.

“So she gets a nickname but I am called Valdez?” Leo complained. He noticed Reyna’s cold stare. “Okay. I’ll shut up.”

“Al.”

“Reyna.”

“Riley Allison, I swear to the gods-”

Al raised her arms in a placating gesture. “First off, we never forced Frank to play. We were just sitting there-”

“Minding our own business-” Leo chimed in.

“Being completely innocent-”

“When Frank joined the poker game.”

“And how many games did you win?” Reyna asked drily.

Al considered it. “I won twelve. Leo won four.”

“How many did you play?”

Al grinned. “Sixteen.”

“And how many did you cheat?”

Al raised her chin defiantly. “Zero. Didn’t even need to. No offence, man, but Frank has a horrible poker face.”

“That I can imagine. Where are the jellybeans?”

Al and Leo exchanged a look. “Gone. Turned to atoms. Or molecules inside a body. Glucose, sucrose, whatever. You get the idea.”

Reyna took a deep breath. Al interrupted before she could say anything. “Percy has the blue ones, if you want.”

Reyna closed her eyes and seemed to be praying for the patience to deal with this. “Out. Both of you.”

“Oh, come on, Rey-” Leo began.

“Out!”

“Okay. Okay. We’re leaving.” Al grabbed Leo by the shoulder and pulled him towards the door. “By the way, Reyna?” Al turned around at the half-open door, brought out a tiny packet and popped a handful of jellybeans into her mouth. She gave an angelic smile and ran down the steps, Leo right behind her laughing their heads off. Annabeth was pretty sure Reyna was counting backwards from a hundred now.

“Annabeth?” Reyna turned to her. “If I happen to murder someone during the war games tomorrow, would you help me hide the body? I won't be playing, but if my hand accidentally slips-”

Annabeth smiled. “As long as it’s not Percy.”

Frank swallowed. “I’m thinking of retiring. And running away. Far, _far_ away.”

Reyna smirked. “What cohort do you intend to join for the next war games, Chase? Perhaps you’d like to beat Jackson’s ass in.”


	2. Chapter II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay! New chapter!  
> Special thanks to Pidgeapodge who helped me correct an embarrassing amount of errors and plot holes in Rise of Chaos. Seriously, thanks a lot.

**REYNA**

Reyna was home.

Finally, home sweet home. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed the camp, with its familiar streets and buildings, the sound of an entire demigod city around her, the view from her window, the smell of coffee and other treats from Bombilo’s.

The first thing she did was have a long, long shower. She didn’t mind quests, but she hated the dirt and grime associated with them. As soon as she collapsed onto the couch, Aurum and Argentum leaped onto it on either side of her, putting their heads on her lap. They had been sticking to her side like glue ever since she returned, never leaving her for a moment. It had been a headache stopping them from following her into the bathroom (which would be damn awkward) and even then they’d been right outside the door, almost tripping her when she came out. She allowed herself to relax as she leant back, stroking their heads.

The door opened as Hylla stepped in. Reyna refused to get up when she had just sat down. Hylla took in everything: the papers scattered throughout the room, the weapons on the table, the bag of jellybeans and the two dogs on either side of her.

“Most people have books on the table, not daggers.” Hylla commented.

Reyna shrugged. “I can't believe you actually left your base in Seattle.”

Hylla snorted. “Unlike you, I’m not a turtle that refuses to leave their home.”

Reyna scowled. “I’m not a turtle. And a warehouse is not a home.”

Hylla’s face had a matching scowl. “The warehouses are only part of it. And how many times do we need to have this argument?”

Reyna sighed. “I wasn’t even trying. You don’t need to worry about me. I can handle myself.”

Hylla rolled her eyes. “You disappeared for more than two weeks. Of course I was worried, given that like the aforementioned tortoise, you refuse to leave your precious Legion at any cost.”

“Turtle.”

Hylla blinked. “What?”

“You said turtle earlier. Turtles and tortoises are different animals, though they are similar.”

“Thank you, Darwin.” Hylla was giving Reyna her most deadpan expression.

“You’re welcome. Anyways, you said you were leaving at dinner. Don’t you dare to try and recruit any of my legionnaires.”

Hylla grinned slowly. “I’ve already begun. I think the Zhang boy was too scared to say no, especially since I am wearing my golden belt.”

Reyna glared at her. “I am the senior Praetor of the Legion. My word supersedes Frank’s. And I say no.”

Hylla smirked. “You know that no matter how scary you try to act now, I still know you as the little three-year old in pajamas who loved jellybeans, right?”

“That may be the case.” Reyna kept her voice firm. “But now I speak with the authority of the Twelfth Legion.”

“Praetor or not, you’re still my little sister.” Hylla commented.

Reyna glared even harder at her. Somehow, every time Hylla reminded her of her younger self, it made her feel powerless, the way she had been in San Juan. “Well, maybe you should have remembered that when you left me in California. I’ll try to remember it when I attend your funeral.”

Hylla froze. “What in the name of Bellona is that supposed to mean?”

Aurum licked her hand, trying to calm her down. “How long will you be queen, Hylla? Five years? Ten? How long before someone challenges you, and you lose? For all that you claim, you don’t really think beyond the next step, do you?”

Hylla crossed her arms. “I’ll be queen as long as necessary. I’ll live my life to the fullest.”

Reyna laughed sarcastically. “To the fullest. Yeah. Right.”

Hylla gritted her teeth. “Well, at least I don’t live like you. Showing a mask to the world, never letting people know what you really think or feel. Are you still in there, sister? Papa tried hiding his thoughts just after he returned, and it made the whole thing worse, and look where that landed us!”

“I AM NOTHING LIKE FATHER!” Reyna roared. “AND I AM NOT THE ONE TRYING TO ‘RECLAIM’ THEIR GHOSTS!”

“WELL, I DIDN’T ASK FOR YOUR OPINION! I WOULD RATHER DIE AS I AM THAN LIVE AS YOU THINK I SHOULD BE!”

“REALLY, THEN-”

Just then the door opened and Frank looked inside. “Hey Reyna, just wanted to remind you that it’s dinner time, in case you fell aslee-” He noticed the angry looks on their faces. “Is it a bad time?”

Reyna stormed past Frank out of the door, fuming. “Couldn’t have been better. Let’s go.”

***********************

Dinner was a tense affair, with her and Hylla at the same table, ignoring each other. She explained in brief about the quest, and the sword which was now in Al’s possession. Annabeth and Nico told her what they’d found out about the situation.

Annabeth traced circles in her plate with her spoon. “What do you think about Al, Reyna? You know her best. What way is she going to go?”

Reyna frowned. “I don’t think Al is going to be the problem. She is new to the whole thing, and she doesn’t really have anything against the Olympians or the world in general. The main problem with her will be getting her to shape up to our fighting standards. She doesn’t know the difference between wielding a spear and a baseball bat.”

Annabeth shook her head. “But what if we’re being fooled? Al’s a rookie, but she’s not an idiot.”

Reyna studied Annabeth. She was pretty sure that Al had talked to Annabeth for about zero seconds, still Annabeth knew that Al was sharp. She needed to remember that Annabeth was a good friend, but also a dangerous enemy.

Reyna shrugged. “I don’t really know. It’s a chance we’ll have to take.”

She glanced at the Fifth Cohort table, where Al was sitting with the new Bacchus kid and Lavinia Asimov (gods, that Terpsichore girl was a major headache) eating ( _surprise, not_ ) cheeseburgers. Al turned to look at her and gave her a crooked grin, like she knew that she was the topic of discussion. She gave Reyna a two-fingered salute and returned to her conversation. Reyna wondered how a light-hearted person like Al could be a Champion of Chaos.

Then she remembered the absolute fury and destruction followed by the cold darkness in her eyes when Melinoe turned into her sister’s ghost, and she turned away.

**********************

Al came to her after dinner. Somehow, she’d managed to find a shirt that said ‘MY COHORT WENT TO CAMP JUPITER AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS T-SHIRT’. “So, what’s the consensus?”

Reyna blinked. “What?”

Al waved her hands around. “Do I turn evil or not? Shall I bring light to this world or darkness? Do I make the world or destroy it?”

Reyna sighed. “Neutral, for now.” There was no use hiding things.

“Hmm.” Al walked backwards, hands in her pockets. “What was the fight about this time?”

Reyna rolled her eyes. “Stop showing off. And I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Liar, liar, pants on fire!” Al sang. “If I was wrong, you’d have said I was wrong, you wouldn’t have told me to stop showing off. Let me guess, was it Romans vs. Amazons? Maybe hit a little close to home when your dad was mentioned?” She studied her face. “Yup, that’s what happened.”

“Mind your own business.” Reyna snapped. She didn’t need someone to psychoanalyze her.

Al didn’t look perturbed. She seemed to be considering something. She finally seemed to make up her mind. “Follow me.”

*********************

Sneaking out of a Roman military camp should _not_ have been so easy. She followed Al through a hole in the fence, down a trench, through a tunnel, past the pickets, out of sight of the camp’s sentry towers, through another tunnel which looked like an old unused sewer and finally through a narrow hole outside. She was right, it was an old sewer; they had just stepped out of a manhole.

Al seemed to notice her thoughts. “No, it shouldn’t be this easy. But the camp was made to keep out monsters and invading armies. It’s not meant to keep in individual legionnaires. If you know the patrol schedule and are willing to keep changing up your entry points, it’s easy.”

Reyna raised her eyebrow. “And you learnt all that in the first day?”

Al smirked. “What do you _think_ I’ve been doing all day while you chatted with your friends about whether or not I would cut your throats while you slept?”

Reyna examined the way they’d come. “We should have guards there. Just in case. Because someone could get in the way we got out.”

“Oh, come on, Rey. Live a little.”

“Don’t call me _Rey_.”

Al raised her hands. “Look, I’m not gonna argue with you, but there’s dozens of ways out of camp. If I knew you’d set sentries on them, I wouldn’t have shown even one. Plus, hey, very few people know about these. It’s _really_ unlikely that someone will sneak in. Besides, they’d set off your alarms as soon as they enter the camp. We won't, since you’re, you know, Praetor. No one’s giving us latrine duty. Just chill.”

Reyna sighed. She wouldn’t tell anyone, but she was going to keep Aurum and Argentum on guard duty there. She looked around herself. The place looked like an empty park, with nothing but grass around them, not even a single tree. A small four feet tall circular fence about twenty feet in radius encircled them. The brown brick wall of a house was at their backs, and stars shone brightly in the night sky. “Where is this?”

Al bit her lip. “I’m not really sure. As far as I could make out, it’s kind of an intersection of two places where it falls outside Camp Jupiter but inside the effects of the magical boundaries, which means practically no one comes here. The place is untouched.”

Reyna could see that; there was not a single piece of trash around, and the grass was fresh and green even in early November.

“And you brought me here because?”

“Because you looked sad, Praetor. And I knew you were going to go to your room or whatever and sulk with your dogs. Which is a terrible way to spend your time, honestly. But some legionnaires recommended the hot dogs and the tacos from a nearby taco truck. Plus, I was bored and didn’t want to go back to those barracks. Annabeth Chase keeps looking at me like she expects me to take out a sword and summon dark magic.”

The Greeks had been given a common living arrangement in one of the old barracks of the Legion, which were empty and had been cleaned to accommodate them. In order to maintain the image of Al as a Greek, she’d been made to stay there, too.

“Annabeth is just being cautious. Better safe than sorry. And I was _not_ going to sulk with my dogs for company.”

“Could have fooled me.” Al muttered. “So were you going to sulk with a bowl of jellybeans for company?”

Reyna glared at her. She would rather cut her tongue out than admit Al was right. “And you brought me here because?”

Al shrugged. “This place is secret. But it’s no fun having a secret place if no one knows you have a secret place.”

Reyna prayed to whatever gods there were for patience. “So are you done?”

Al gave her a look. “How boring are you? You know what, you can leave. I’m gonna stay. I like it here. It’s peaceful. Quiet.” She sat down against the wall and sighed contentedly.

“Get up, Al.” Reyna _did not_ have the energy to deal with this. “You aren’t supposed to be out of the camp.”

Al rolled her eyes. “Or what? You drag me back?”

Reyna gritted her teeth and started walking away. “I’m leaving.”

“Close the hole behind you!” Al called out. “Maybe even try to make amends with Hylla!”

Reyna turned round angrily. “What goes on between me and Hylla is none of your business.”

“Just saying.” Al shrugged. “Better to swallow one’s pride than to swallow one’s grief.”

“Go to hell, Al.”

“Nah, I can't.” Al leaned against the wall. “Satan still has a restraining order against me.”

Reyna rolled her eyes. “Very funny.”

“It was funny.” Al insisted.

“No, it wasn’t.”

“Yes, it was.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“How old are we, five?”

“I’m seventeen.” Reyna said drily. “I’m pretty sure you’re five.”

“Hey!” Al protested. “Five-year olds can't do magic tricks! See?” She was holding a card in her hand which disappeared when she flicked her fingers.

“I’m sorry. You’re a three-year old.”

“Excuse me. I’m not the one going into a corner to sulk like a toddler.” She noticed Reyna’s expression. “All right, let’s get back to your precious camp. And you can go and pretend you aren’t angry and feel hella great- no, wait, Hylla great.”

Reyna stared at her for a second. “Congratulations. You just made the worst pun I’ve ever heard in my life.”

“Is that why you’re smiling?”

“Because of the sheer ridiculousness of it.”

Al grinned. “But you though it was funny. You did. Also, you can make that pun in your sister’s face. Now I’m gonna race you back to camp. Come on, Mowgli. Put that wolf training to use.”

“ _Mowgli_?”

“Oh, I’m definitely gonna run now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hmm... what do you think about this? Too much? Or not?


	3. Chapter III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bonus Christmas chapter. ; )

**AL**

Her first week was bliss.

The Roman camp was totally cool, and once she was introduced to the children of Mercury, they became, well, thick as thieves.

She spent most of her first day with the Fifth Cohort. She wasn’t really comfortable talking to the Greeks. They were almost all part of the Seven, and had kind of a legendary status among the campers.

She hung out with Daisy and a Terpsichore kid named Lavinia who was a bit of an oddball. She didn’t really mind, though. She’d learnt a long time ago that the weird people, the black sheep, the odd ducks, the eccentrics, the loners and the people whom everyone ignored or plain forgot tended to have the most interesting tidbits of information.

She wasn’t disappointed. Lavinia Asimov knew all the ways in and out of camp, some of which she was sure that even the Praetors didn’t know. Though she could have done without the bright pink hair.

It was only when they were heading to dinner that she noticed Reyna storming off to dinner like she was going to skewer her food. Her sister followed a couple of seconds later with an equally angry expression.

“Oh, wow, here we go again.”

She turned to see Leo Valdez standing right behind her, fiddling with wires on a printed circuit board. “You’re Al, right? The new kid who’s got no idea what the Hades is going on, but is somehow supposed to make an important choice or stuff?”

“Is this supposed to be normal?”

He snorted. “More than it should be. We call it the Clueless Club.” He shook his head and twisted a couple of wires. “Those two are always at each other’s throats.”

Al frowned. “You’ve met the Queen of the Amazons before?”

Leo gave an impish grin. “Wish I had. Sadly, no. But word gets around. There’s nothing the Romans love more than gossip.”

Al turned to look at Frank awkwardly following them towards dinner. “Yeah, I already learnt that. So this is a regular occurrence?”

“Yeah, they’ve got some old beef going on. No clue about that. This is Sibling Spat number…. I dunno, fourteen million, six hundred and five?”

Al raised an eyebrow. “How many ended peacefully?”

Leo lowered his voice to a secretive whisper and held up a finger. “One.”

Al grinned. “I understood that reference.”

Leo had a matching grin on his face. “So did I. Good to meet someone who has a sense of humor. When Annabeth said you and Reyna were friends, I thought you were some uptight, stiff-backed Roman.”

Al chuckled. “I dunno about friends. More like I clown around and she tolerates me.”

Leo had the kind of look in his eyes that made most teachers yell ‘Don’t even think about it!’. “Say, Al, you wouldn’t have anything against helping me with a few harmless pranks, would you?”

Al shook his hand. “With immense pleasure, buddy.”

************************

And now, a week later, here she was. Truth be told, the whole Legion gathered together was an impressive sight.

Around two hundred kids, as young as eight to as old as eighteen were standing in five groups ( _cohorts,_ she corrected herself). A lot of them seemed to be excited about the war games while some looked tired and the rest (most probably the newest) looked intimidated. Not that she blamed them.

She tested the new sword in her hand. It was strangely weighted, and the guy at the forges had given her a weird look when she said that she wanted that one. It was heavier than average, more weight at the point than the hilt. It had swung easily in her hand (even if in the wrong way, the rest kept slipping out of her hands), and since she didn’t want to turn anyone to atoms with the sword she and Reyna had retrieved on their quest, this was the perfect alternative. Still, she had her doubts.

“Hey.” She leaned to whisper to Lavinia. “Isn’t using real weapons…. I don’t know, kinda dangerous?”

Lavinia snorted. “That’s the fun part, genius.”

Daisy rolled her eyes. “You kept a stolen revolver in your desk drawer, and now you’re worried about weapons regulations?”

Damn it. She didn’t want to be a part of this at all, but Reyna had agreed with the Greeks to let them play in the war games. Percy Jackson had joined the Fifth, Leo had joined the Third, Annabeth Chase the First and Piper McLean the Second. Nico di Angelo had chosen to join the Fourth, and she’d been packed off to the Fifth, since a legacy of Hermes wasn’t really a big deal. From what she’d gathered, the first two cohorts tended to win, so she was seventy percent sure that this arrangement was Reyna’s revenge for the jellybean poker incident yesterday.

The person in question was circling above the field on one of the Legion’s eagles with the other Praetor, Frank (as another eagle). She’d taken her aside and told her not to do the black fire thing in front of the Legion, and Al had agreed. Truth was, it freaked her out just as much as it did to everyone else. For now, she was just the legacy of Hermes.

“All right, legionnaires! Let the games begin!”

The whole thing was chaos. The first two cohorts had built a fort, ( _in one day, that’s crazy_ ) on top of which they had mounted canons, which spat out balls of earth and straw, which may not sound much but hurt like hell when they slammed into you at sixty miles an hour. Nico di Angelo managed to get in ( _freaky shadow travel_ ), but no one had seen him since. He’d probably been captured.

“They generally use water!” Lavinia yelled over the noise. “But Percy is with us today, so they are using these earth balls, because the last time, he exploded all the water cannons and we won because they were too busy screaming when all the water went up their noses! It was so funny that even Praetor Stiff was trying not to laugh!”

Al nodded, but she didn’t really care what Percy Jackson did the last time. All she wanted was to get this over with, preferably without broken ribs. One of the cannonballs slammed into her, throwing her off her feet and knocking the breath out of her lungs. She swore as she coughed and wheezed, glancing up just to see one of the legion’s eagles swoop in to carry away a wounded Roman. Reyna’s looked down at her, and even though she was way too high up to be sure, Al was sure she was smirking. She dodged another cannonball and tried to observe the fort.

There was no way she was going to be able to fight her way into the fort. Even if she managed to get close, she sucked at fighting. She’d probably be knocked out in a couple of hits or worse, trip over her own feet and stab herself. She wasn’t a fighter. But she was a thief. She was descended from the fricking _god_ of thieves.

The fort was about twenty feet high, canons on the top at regular intervals of exactly ten feet, with lookouts for the legionnaires from where they peeped at regular intervals and sent any enemy who came close back to their lines with a mouth full of dirt. The corners were shaped into cylindrical watchtowers with more cannons on them. Every inch of the walls was visible. Every inch except-

_This is probably the stupidest idea I’ve ever had._

“Blow something up!” she yelled at Lavinia. “Anything! I need a distraction!”

The pink-haired girl smirked. “With pleasure. Give me twenty seconds.”

“Go, go, go!” She turned to one of the legionnaires and grabbed his shield.

“Hey!” he complained.

“Sorry!” she didn’t even turn to see who it was. She dodged the incoming missiles and ran up to the walls, counting in her head. _Eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, twenty tw-_

There was a large explosion about twenty feet to her left. Immediately most of the cannons swung in that direction. She ran up to the corner formed by the fort wall and the watchtower, slipping her left arm through the strap of the shield, using it to cover the left part of her body ( _thank god for large shields_ ) while she climbed the walls ( _thanks, dad, for the experience_ ) using the watchtower to shield her right side. The only way someone would be able to get her was if they threw something directly on her head. Hopefully, she’d worn the helmet correctly.

Another explosion ripped through the noise, filling the air with dust. She resisted the urge to start coughing. Her nose itched, making her throat feel scratchy.

 _Keep going._ She told herself sternly. _Stop being a wuss._

_Almost there. Almost there. There!_

She grabbed the edge of the wall with one hand, tying a rope to one of the projecting pieces, letting it fall to the ground for others. She heaved herself over the edge, bringing down the legionnaire coming to check on the climber. She hit his helmet with her sword, and he crumpled to the ground.

 _I could get used to this._ She grabbed his helmet, pulling it off and replacing it with her own, wearing his. Hopefully no one would notice that the person under the armor was a stranger.

She snuck into the watchtower. “Hey, buddy.” As soon as he turned, she slammed her sword into his head. He too crumpled to the ground. She dragged him to a corner and dared to peep out of the hole. This was like some real version of Space Marshals 2. Daisy was climbing up the rope she had left, followed by Lavinia and Hazel Levesque. She blinked, and they disappeared. She grinned. _I love the Mist._

She turned, and nearly had a heart attack. Annabeth Chase was standing right behind her. “See anyone?” she asked.

 _Oh right. I’m wearing a helmet._ “No one.”

She shook her head. “Hazel could be there.” She leaned out of the hole. “I can't see anyone either.”

As soon as Annabeth turned, she smacked the flat of her blade against her temple. _Ouch._ _That must have hurt._ “Damn. Now I owe her twenty drachmas.” A voice behind her said. She turned only to feel something hit the back of her head and the world went black.

********************

She woke up on the ground, some distance away from the fort. She winced and sat up.

“About time, sleepyhead. You missed the end.”

“What?” she looked around, confused. Lavinia was leaning over her, her arm in a cast.

“We won, doofus.” She snorted.

Al blinked. “We did?”

“Yeah.” She sat down near her. “Piper McLean took you out, but once Hazel got up there, it was game over anyway. No one knew what the hell was real and what was the Mist, and the ones who managed it were quickly taken out by yours truly or driven insane, temporarily, of course, by our young friend here.” She waved at Daisy. “Then Percy Jackson and Leo Valdez got in with the son of Pluto, and then, well, the whole cohort got in, and…” she shrugged. “We kinda won.”

“Wow.” Al muttered. “Just wow.”

“Yeah. It was pretty cool.”

“How long have I been out?”

Lavinia grinned. “Long enough for us to do all the hard work. The games just ended.”

Al looked around. The whole legion was still on the field. Most people were just milling around, like schoolkids after the last bell had rung. The Fifth was in high spirits, with the Kool-Aid addicted centurion grinning widely as he slapped his friends on their backs.

“What about-”

She was interrupted by a column of fire blasting into the air in the midst of the legion. Heat seared her eyebrows. Everyone scrambled backwards as a huge soldier stepped out of the explosion. The soldier was ten feet tall, dressed in Canadian Forces desert camouflage. He radiated confidence and power. His black hair was cut in a flat-topped wedge like Frank’s. His face was angular and brutal, marked with old knife scars. His eyes were covered with infrared goggles that glowed from inside. He wore a utility belt with a sidearm, a knife holster and several grenades. In his hands was an oversized M16 rifle.

“Mars.” Lavinia whispered. “God of-”

“War, I know.” Al took a step back. She had fulfilled her quota of meeting immortal deities in her lifetime. Plus, she was really dizzy.

Mars clapped his hands. “All right, Romans! I want you to pay attention, since I’m not going to repeat myself. Where’s that augur boy?”

Reyna stepped forward from the crowd. “Lord Mars, Octavian died during the Giant War.”

Mars nodded. “Good. He was an annoying little prick. I don’t have to shut him up, then.” He turned in the general direction of the legion. “We have a quest!” he spread his arms wide. “Ten questers. That chicken of yours… what’s her name? Ella!” he snapped his fingers. “She’s got the prophecy. Now the people on the quest…” he glanced around.

“Chicken?” whispered Lavinia.

“You!” his finger was pointing right at her, making her jump in surprise. Know that feeling when you’ve zoned out on the last bench and suddenly the teacher points at you? That’s exactly what she felt like. “You, and that girl next to you with the pink hairdo. You’re going.”

Al wondered whether it would be too noticeable if she just ran away now. Or stabbed herself. If one thing made her feel better, it was that Lavinia looked just as gobsmacked as her, and she was the walking, talking definition of weirdness.

“You” he pointed at Daisy. “The wine dude’s kid. C’mere.” He turned around, his eyes searching. “You two Pluto kids. Barnacle Beard’s son.” He pointed at Percy. “The Minerva kid there. You and you” he pointed at two guys from the Fifth Cohort. “That’s nine, right?” he turned towards Reyna. “And you’re gonna be in this one too. Plan’s simple. Go to Alaska. You’ll find something about your precious Greek camp there. Do whatever. Have your meetings. But you’re leaving tomorrow morning. Is that clear?” he turned around, looking at all of them. “Good. Don’t fail.” The column of fire erupted again, and he disappeared.

For about half a minute, the entire legion just stood there in silence. The stares of the legionnaires were making Al feel awkward. Finally, Lavinia piped up. “Alaska in _November_? Seriously?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters in one day! Why not, though? It's Christmas!  
> Ah... that Christmas when you don't get a break from classes, but still can't help feeling festive.  
> Oh look, I missed Wilson's Theorem. Dam.  
> Merry Christmas, guys. Next update will be on New Year's.  
> With peace, and in all your demigodish-ness,  
> TheStarkster.


	4. Chapter IV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Update! I fully intended to post this chapter on New Year's, but I got a bit busy with other stuff, so here is my late addition to this series that I can't let go. Well, I suppose that I'm not really late. It's still the 1st of January in the Western part of the US. ; )

**REYNA**

The next morning, Reyna was the first one at the camp border. From the hilltops, she could see everything below. The Little Tiber snaked across golden pastures where the unicorns were grazing. The temples and forums of New Rome gleamed in the sunlight. On the Field of Mars, engineers were hard at work, pulling down the remains of last night’s fort and setting up barricades for a game of death ball. A normal day for Camp Jupiter. Every time she felt tired of her position and its responsibilities, she came here. Looking down at the valley, she was reminded why she cared so much. Every time she was here, felt a fierce desire to protect this place.

“I know.” A voice spoke up from her side. Reyna jumped and barely stopped herself from punching Al in the face. _How the hell did she sneak up here without her noticing?_ “I haven’t been here for long, but something about this place makes you feel that dying for it is a life well-lived. Which is creepy, seeing that I’m only seventeen. But you demigod types are weird. Also, nice to see that you have a normal teenager’s wardrobe.”

Reyna rolled her eyes. “You are a demigod too.”

Al frowned. “Well, technically, I’m not. I’m a demi-primordial, if you like. Which means that I’m cooler than you.”

“Al?” Reyna smiled slowly. “Worms. Big, fat, worms crawling everywhere.”

Al glared at her. “For the billionth time, I am _not_ afraid of-”

Just then Nico stumbled out of the shadows, almost tripping over his feet. He looked around, confused. “What are you afraid of?”

“Nothing.” Al scowled.

Reyna glanced at the watch on her wrist. “What’s taking the rest of them so long?”

“Well, not all of us get up at the crack of dawn like roosters, Praetor.” Lavinia bounded up the slope with the rest of the questers from the Fifth. “Also, Bombilo’s just opened, so we got sidetracked.” She turned to Al. “We got you hot chocolate.”

Al grinned. “Thanks.” She wrapped her fingers around the steaming mug and inhaled deeply. “Ah. This makes it worth getting up at dawn.”

Nico was pacing around. “Where the Hades are-” He turned to see Festus flying towards them. “Oh.”

Festus landed gently on the hilltop. Leo, Hazel, Percy and Annabeth jumped off, hurrying towards them. “Sorry about being late.” Percy panted. “Blame Frank.”

Reyna sighed. “Was he being a mother hen?”

Annabeth nodded. “You have no idea. He’d wrap us all in bubble wrap if he could.”

“Nice to see the hot chocolate.” Percy looked around. “Is there any extra?”

“Sorry, nope.”

Percy pouted like a little child. “Whatever. Really, Reyna I didn’t know you owned anything other than the Praetor regalia.”

Reyna scowled. “Do you seriously think I sleep in that thing?”

“I thought you slept in battle armor.” Percy muttered. “I still want hot chocolate.”

Just then a statue of Terminus appeared right next to Nico, making him jump. The god’s marble face frowned irritably. “Well? Come along!”

“We should get going.” Agreed Annabeth. “Come on, guys.”

Leo gave a mock salute. “Me and Festus will be here making sure this camp is safe. Don’t worry, Reyna, we won't let anything happen to your camp.”

“Last time, you tried to burn it down.” Reyna reminded.

Leo gasped, making a wounded face. “Oh come on! Whatever happened to ‘forgive and forget’?”’ he turned to Al. “Do me a favor. Give them hell.”

Al grinned. “You got it, bro.”

Lavinia smirked. “I’ll help, too. This will be fun.”

“I have a vague premonition of terror.” Nico whispered.

“If you do anything interesting, amusing, or even mildly entertaining on this trip…” Reyna threatened, making everyone gulp. “Let’s go.”

Al took a sip from her mug. “At least I have hot chocolate.” Somehow, Percy managed to pout even more.

“All right.” Leo climbed back on Festus. “The dragon taxi service is available 24/7, so in case anyone wants to back out, I’m right here. Adios amigos! Try not to die.”

“I want to back out.” Whispered Al.

“Shut up.”

One of the legionnaires of the Fifth raised his hand. “Um… just a question, are we driving all the way up to Alaska?”

Reyna shook her head. “The Romans have a navy. It’s slightly better than the one we had before.” She caught Percy’s raised eyebrow. “It’s a large sailboat. Should fit us all in.”

Annabeth frowned. “I don’t know your names.” She turned towards the Fifth Cohort legionnaires.

“Lavinia Asimov.” Lavinia piped up.

“Daisy.”

“Ryan McConnell.”

“Jakob Pichler.”

Reyna cursed internally. A son of Discordia was the last thing they needed on a quest.

“Are you all done chit-chatting?” Terminus said. “I have better things to do, you know! Ten people on a quest. _Ten!_ And three of them are on probatio. Four are Graecus!”

“Come on, guys.” Percy said. “Let’s go before he starts his rant. We know the way. You told us last time.”

“Just down to the BART station,” Terminus said anyway. “Change trains at Twelfth Street in Oakland. You want Fruitvale Station. From there, you can walk or take the bus to Alameda.”

“Thanks, T.”

An invisible force kicked them across the boundary. When Reyna looked back, Terminus was gone. In fact, the entire valley was gone. The Berkeley Hills seemed to be free of any Roman camp.

It took them two hours to reach the docks in Alameda. The trip was easy. No monsters attacked. They’d packed so that they looked like normal high schoolers on their way to an overnight trip. They walked to Rockridge Station, bought their tickets with mortal money, and hopped on the BART train. They got off in Oakland. They had to walk through some rough neighborhoods, but nobody bothered them. The large number and the Roman wolf stare that they’d perfected seemed to keep everyone away. In the late afternoon, they made it to the Alameda docks. Reyna looked out over San Francisco Bay and breathed in the salty sea air. Dozens of boats were moored at the docks – everything from fifty-foot yachts to ten-foot fishing boats. She scanned the slips for the new sailboat.

“There.” She pointed. A thirty feet long sailboat was docked at the shore. Embroidered in faded gold along the canvas was S.P.Q.R. Percy uncovered the boat, his hands working the knots like he’d been doing it his whole life. It was new and gleaming, like it had never been used. Probably because it hadn’t. On the bow, the name Pax was written, lettered in gold. Reyna knew that the interior was empty except for bare necessities. The cabin was just a wooden hollow with two rows of beds against either wall. She’d only been there once to examine the boat, and she wasn’t really excited to spend more time on board. Judging by the color of her face, neither was Hazel.

“Well, this is certainly an improvement.” Percy commented.

“This is the _navy_?” Jakob commented. “Like, the _whole_ navy? What was it like before?”

“A tiny dinghy-like rowboat.” Percy replied. All this time, the ropes and the sails were adjusting themselves, making the boat voyage ready in a matter of minutes. “Come on. Let’s all get aboard, people!”

************************

It should be impossible, but they were rushing along at twenty knots an hour towards the Golden Gate Bridge.

Since Percy, Annabeth and her were the only ones with any sort of sailing experience, they’d agreed to take watches of eight hours each, accompanied by another person to keep them from falling asleep. Hazel had retreated to the cabin to keep herself from becoming seasick.

They passed the piers along the San Francisco Embarcadero, speeding by a pack of sea lions lounging on the docks, and she swore she saw an old homeless guy sitting among them. They entered the Pacific currents and skirted the rocky coastline of Marin County. As they passed Stinson Beach, she glanced inland, where a single mountain rose above the green hills. She shivered. Mount Tam. It hadn’t been her best day. They’d had to fight so many monsters, lost so many campers, and after it she had been promoted to Praetor along with Jason because of the former leaders, one had died and the other had retired. At one point, Krios himself had joined the fight. She still had nightmares where black walls kept twisting and turning like they had a life of their own, scattering the legion and decimating it, disorienting the demigods.

After the war, the remaining Praetor had promoted Jason and her to Praetorship, giving her the title of Senior Praetor. At that time, she had been confused.

 _Why me?_ She remembered herself asking. _Jason is a son of Jupiter. Octavian has been here longer. Why make me the Senior Praetor?_

 _Octavian was never an option. He is too power-hungry. I would not have Jason lead the camp alone. He is too indecisive._ The son of Auster said. _Too intent on compromise. Too careful. A wind that blows aimlessly is no good to anyone. I don’t want a mediator at the head. I want a Roman._

 _A Roman who established peace with the Greeks._ Reyna mused. It was the right decision, but she wondered whether she would still be called a proper Roman.

“I think you are doing an amazing job.” Al dropped next to her. “I mean, you’re covered in dog drool and two weeks’ worth of grime, and they still listen to you. They respect you. If that isn’t good leadership, I don’t know what is.”

Reyna turned to her. “What?”

“I said-”

“I know what you said. How did you know what I was think-”

“When we are done with the quest, do you think you might stop asking that question?”

She noticed Reyna’s look. “All right, I heard Percy tell Annabeth that’s Mount Tam, and you looked grimaced like you were remembering something unpleasant. Then you looked unsure and started rubbing your ring like you do every time you’re unsure.” Al raised her eyebrows questioningly. “Am I right?”

“You can't tell all that just by looking at me.”

Al’s eyes narrowed. “Is that a challenge?”

“No.”

Al pushed her curls back from her forehead, though they just returned to their original position. “Have you ever thought,” her eyes gleamed. “that even though you are so _Roman,_ you are also probably the most controversial Praetor ever? I mean, what rule have you _not_ broken?”

“Never a rule that would compromise the safety of the camp.”

“Well,” Al shrugged. “You did leave it in the hands of a madman. Octavian sounds batshit crazy to me.”

“He was.” Reyna agreed. “But he was also a loyal Roman. A _very_ loyal Roman. He may have been obsessive, but he wouldn’t do anything that would harm New Rome. It was the only thing I trusted him with. I wouldn’t have followed the Argo II otherwise.”

“Hmm.” Al scratched her chin. “Still as mad as a hatter. But everyone’s mad in Wonderland.”

“Whatever does Oct-”

“Hey guys.” Percy appeared from the cabin. “Time to talk.”

********************

“So we just keep going to Alaska?” Ryan asked. “I mean, don’t we need food and fresh water and stuff?”

“There’s enough for the time being.” Hazel turned slightly so that she didn’t have to look at the sea, though she still looked a bit green. “But we may have to stop soon.”

“We’ll reach Mendocino tonight.” Percy glanced towards the open expanse of water. “Though I don’t think we should stop there.”

“Let’s not.” Hazel said. “I’m not exactly keen on getting kidnapped by grass again.”

Jakob blinked. “What?”

“It’s a long story.” Percy grinned. “Features a big pile of schist.”

“Seaweed Brain.” Annabeth lightly punched his arm. “Focus.”

Nico frowned. “Wait. You got kidnapped? When was this?”

Hazel sighed. “During my first quest with Percy and Frank. Really Nico, you need to stop worrying-”

“I am legitimately concerned-”

“Neeks, the overprotective big broth-” Percy teased.

“Do _not_ call me Neeks. And I am _not_ overprotective.”

“No, of course not, you don’t flip your lid when someone hurts Hazel or Reyna-”

Reyna stared at the open sea. Time seemed to have passed quickly on the ship and the sun was setting down towards the south-west, leaving orange trails over the ocean. An old-style trireme was sailing some distance away, a dark silhouette against the fiery background. Everything looked calm, peaceful even.

“Perseus Jackson, if you know what is good for you-”

“Cut it out, both of you!” Reyna turned around rubbed her head. “Hazel, how long do you think we can last?”

“A couple of days.” She looked slightly less green now. Or maybe that was just Reyna’s wishful thinking. “We should stop at Newport or Portland. We can make the second stop in Seattle.”

“Let’s try not to.” Reyna didn’t want to waste time because she got sidetracked trying to strangle her sister.

“Yeah.” Percy shuddered. “I still have nightmares where I wear a collar and an orange jumpsuit.”

“What?” Al looked confused.

“Never mind.”

Reyna looked back at the sea. The ship was closer now, the black flag visibly flapping in the wind.

_Wait. Black flag?_

“Percy, stop the ship!”

Percy blinked at her. “What’s wrong?”

“Turn the ship around!”

“Okay, give me a second.” He closed his eyes and concentrated. Reyna grabbed her pilum. The others followed her suit, drawing their own weapons.

_Too late._

Several grappling hooks shot through the air and fastened themselves to the railing, thick celestial bronze cords attached to them, pulling the boat closer to the larger ship. Reyna cursed and joined Annabeth as she tried to cut down the ropes with no luck. The others got ready for a fight.

Several men jumped from the older vessel into the deck. They all had mean, twisted faces, some wearing a black eyepatch, their hands scarred with years of fighting. Most of them were dressed in breeches and stained white shirts.

Reyna felt like someone was twisting a knife in her gut. Sharp pain shot through her back like a reminder of her days with the pirates, before she and Hylla proved themselves. “Blackbeard.”

He looked exactly as she remembered, a huge man with a long tangled pitch-black beard and teeth the same color. He wore mismatched clothes of wool and leather, knee-length boots, and a floppy felt hat. He turned to look at her, his face twisting in a cruel sneer. “Aye, lass. It’s been a while.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yaay! Another one down! My New Year Resolution: Sit my ass down on my chair and actually type up the 'What Happened in Albania' two-shot that I have in mind. Maybe I'll do it. What do y'all think? Should I write it? Or shouldn't I?


	5. Chapter V

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go again...

**HAZEL**

Why did she always get picked for the marine quests?

Sometimes she was sure that the Olympians sat up on their thrones, laughing at the idea of sending a demigod prone to seasickness on an ocean-based quest.

At least the Argo II had been so large that she could pretend that she was on solid land. The new boat was too small for that, swaying with the ocean tides every now and then. Percy, Annabeth and Reyna seemed to be the only ones not bothered by it, though she was the only one getting seasick.

And now they’d been captured by pirates.

As soon as Reyna had identified Blackbeard, Percy had tried to control the sea to gain some leverage, but there was only so much he could do when there were other demigods on board as well as pirates. Four of the pirates had managed to pin him and knock him out, while the rest were still busy trying to defend themselves.

Hazel cursed mentally as she tried to hold off three pirates at once with her spatha. There seemed to be dozens of them, though what they were trying to gain, she had no idea. Only Reyna and Nico seemed to be having any luck, working together like twin parts of a well-oiled machine, though where Reyna learnt to fight with two blades, she had no idea. If that was a Roman fighting style, then Hazel was an iguana.

The new kids from the Fifth Cohort had formed a small circle, fighting back-to-back, though they were losing ground as well. Hazel couldn’t control metals at sea, nor could Nico summon any ghosts for help. Daisy couldn’t use her powers without affecting all of them either, and the only person who could have helped had been knocked out and tied up.

A cry was heard from her left, and she glanced to see one of the pirates falling overboard into the sea. She turned back, only to feel a blow to her head and the world went black.

**************************

When she woke up, they had all been tied with their hands behind their back, in a line with swords pointed in their direction. Loud raucous voices sounded from the cabin. Percy was still lying knocked out on the floor. Two pirates were standing over him, just in case. The others were tied up like her, in different stages of consciousness. At least no one was dead.

Reyna and Al seemed to be having some sort of argument, with Al repeatedly shaking her head.

“No.” she said. “Nah. Nao. Nei. Nada. Non. Nein. Nee. Nay. I can go on for eternity.”

“Just do it.” Reyna growled under her breath.

“I’m not going all Thanos here! I don’t know how to control this, I’m telling you-”

“What are ye landlubbers jabbering about?” Blackbeard appeared from behind one of the pirates, a bottle (perhaps rum?) in hand. He turned to Reyna. “Aye, scallywag.” He took a swig out of his bottle. “Ye were good, ye know. But I’m the Scourge of the Seven Seas.” He took a cutlass from one of the others and pressed it against her neck. “Keep a special look on that one. Lass was a sea dog afore she turned thirteen.”

Hazel gave Reyna a confused look, but Reyna didn’t say anything. Instead, she glared at Al again. Blackbeard seemed to notice that. He raised a pistol and trained it on Al’s forehead.

He turned and pointed at Percy. “Th' sea spawn be too dangerous. Scuttle 'im if he wakes.”

Annabeth struggled weakly against her ropes, but she didn’t seem to be having any luck. She looked concussed.

Hazel turned to her left and almost had a heart attack. Nico was lying next to her, eyes closed, blood trickling from his forehead. She let out a sigh when she sensed he wasn’t dead or close to death.

“Wha' are ye up t'?” Blackbeard pressed the muzzle to Al’s forehead.

“Nothing, really.” Al tried to pull herself back from the gun. “We were discussing that if nemo is Latin for nobody, does that mean the first version of Finding Nemo had Odysseus as the star with Polyphemus as the antagonist?”

For a brief second, everyone just stared at her, including Blackbeard who seemed to be at a loss for words.

That was exactly the reaction Al seemed to be waiting for. Flames crept up her arms, dissolving the bonds. She ducked at the exact second Blackbeard fired, punching him in the knee.

Blackbeard screamed.

It was an inhuman scream, like he was being torn apart into pieces. A scream that comes from the depth of the gut, expressing pain and horror beyond imagination. Like his soul itself was screaming in agony. It made Hazel want to curl up and press her hands to her ears. Black flames crept up around him like a fiery coffin. She closed her eyes.

_Make it stop, make it stop, make it stop…_

It stopped. Hazel opened her eyes. Blackbeard was gone.

It was as though someone had frozen everyone to their spots. Al was still crouched with her fist closed, looking at the spot where Blackbeard had been standing with horror. Annabeth was staring at the scene, wide-eyed. Reyna was looking at Al with shock and fear.

Worse still, she couldn’t sense Blackbeard’s spirit either. He was just… gone.

For a few moments, everyone just stayed where they were.

Then the remaining pirates charged, swearing, holding out their weapons.

Al staggered to her feet and spread out her arms, wreathed in fire. “Who wants to be next?”

The pirates staggered to a stop.

“Leave.” Al glared at them. “Or I’ll turn you all to atoms.”

The pirates backed away slowly, yelling orders at each other, finally breaking ranks to run back to their ship. Ropes were pulled, and the ship left just as quickly as it came. Al grabbed a fallen sword cut the others’ ropes. She didn’t meet anyone’s eyes. “I’ll be back.” She cleared her throat. “We should dock at Mendocino. Get some help for these guys.” She indicated the others who were still knocked out. “I’ll… I’ll be around.”

********************

At least she didn’t have to undergo the herbal healing treatment. Or eat the macrobiotic beef jerky.

Mendocino had the advantage of a friendly resident goddess in the neighborhood, though it was admittedly a difficult task half-carrying, half-supporting the semi-conscious demigods.

She couldn’t sense Blackbeard’s spirit. It was as though his very essence had been destroyed.

Al hadn’t talked to anyone since that incident, instead preferring to maintain a distance from the others, lost in her own thoughts. They’d mostly worked in silence, piling into Iris’s shop, sweaty, tired, and tensed to fight. Iris had welcomed them all in her usual cheery, slightly eccentric way, which had most of the demigods blinking in confusion.

She’d thrown out Al, Ryan and Jakob, though, claiming that they ‘disturbed her chakra’. Al had only been too ready to leave, and the others followed her, grumbling. When asked who she thought Ryan’s godly parent was, she went off into some long monologue about yin and yang.

Nico and Reyna were talking quietly in a corner. Nico looked better after being treated by Fleecy, though he was still a little pale.

“I’m worried abo-” Reyna broke off when she saw Hazel. “Hazel. Are you fine?”

Hazel nodded. “I’m good.”

Nico studied her. “Are you sure? You’ve been seasick for a while now.”

Hazel sighed. “I really _am_ fine, Nico.” She hesitated. “About Blackbeard-”

“He’s gone.” Nico confirmed. “His spirit doesn’t exist anymore.”

Reyna looked like she was trying to process all this. “That is… disturbing, though not unwelcome. But I wanted to talk about something else. Something is wrong with this quest.”

Nico frowned. “ _I_ think that it is pretty disturbing. A whole spirit is gone. If Al had been in control, I would have been pretty worried. I mean, a pirate isn’t really a shining beacon of ethics, but his soul was destroyed. It’s _wrong._ Well, after what happened today, I would say-”

“No.” Reyna twisted the sword-and-torch ring on her finger. “The _quest_ itself feels wrong. We’re going to the land beyond the gods to search for the Greek camp, but the quest is from the Roman side. Ten questers for this?” Her fingers tapped the hilt of the sword at her side. “Not to mention the people chosen for the quest themselves.”

“I’m hurt, Reyna.” Nico said drily. “What’s wrong with me?”

Reyna rolled her eyes. “That isn’t what I meant. A handful of older demigods, a few new ones, one unclaimed, one who can’t control their powers, one is a literal _child_ ,” she sounded especially annoyed about that. “Add a son of Discordia to the mix, and you don’t get a team. You get a mixture ready to explode.”

Nico raised an eyebrow. “Mars himself gave us this quest, right?”

Reyna shook her head. “Something… something else is wrong. I just can't put my finger on it.”

Nico shrugged. “I don’t know. But we’ll have to make a quick stop at Seattle.”

Reyna scowled. Hazel frowned a bit. “Why Seattle? It’s out of the way.”

“Frank just sent an Iris-Message. He’s been trying for days to get it through.” Reyna informed. “Ella has been muttering non-stop about ghosts in Portland and a child of war, so that has to be our first stop. And the camp is being attacked almost continuously. They need reinforcements, so I’m going to try and make a deal with Hylla. He wanted to talk to you as well, but the Iris messages are failing. This one worked only because we’re right next to Iris. We can't get through to Hylla, so we’re going to have to visit my sister. Hopefully, we won't kill each other.”

*********************

Hazel didn’t expect Al to approach her for help.

“Hey, look.” Al rubbed the back of her neck nervously. “I was wondering if you could help.”

Hazel blinked. “With what?”

Al stretched out her palm, which promptly burst into flames. “I’ve been trying to control it ever since it started, but it’s like trying to hold back a river after the dam’s broken.” She clenched her fist, and the flames slowly retreated. “Daisy told me about, you know… your curse.” She trailed off. “I thought you might know how to overcome this.”

Hazel would admit that she was a little miffed about having her curse discussed. Al seemed to catch on.

“Don’t worry.” She held her hands in a reassuring gesture. “Daisy’s not a tattler. But I’ve known her for almost four years now. She’s…” Al frowned. “She’s like a little sister to me. I wanted to thank you for that as well. She told me that you stopped her from running away.”

“No one should to be afraid of themselves.” Hazel knew all too well what it used to be like to be called a freak. Not to mention that she’d raised a giant and almost destroyed the world. “And everyone deserves a second chance.”

Al stared off into the distance. “Not everyone. I’ve met a few people… never mind. I just wanted to say: thank you. For everything. The kid’s had a hard life as it is. You kept her safe. I don’t really have family to lose, but the kid comes close.”

Hazel smiled. “It’s not her fault that she was born with this power.”

Al chuckled. “I know. Driving people crazy is _my_ specialty. But I’d prefer if I didn’t turn anyone to dust while I did it.”

“I don’t know if I can help you. But I can definitely try.” Hazel promised.

Al grinned, shaking her hand. “That’s all I’m asking for.”

**************************

They stocked up their supplies and pushed forward. They didn’t want to attract too much trouble. But there was only so long you could last until you needed more food, given that they had ten hungry teenagers on board. Or nine teenagers and one twelve-year old.

Reyna didn’t look happy to have to stop at Seattle, which Al seemed to find intensely amusing, making Amazon references just to get her riled up. _Riley… riled up-gods, I’ve been spending too much time with Leo._ Unlike Leo, at least Al knew when to call it quits and leave Reyna alone. She’d disappear somewhere with Lavinia and Daisy (though how she managed to that on a boat, Hazel had no idea).

One thing frustrated Hazel, though. Unlike other quests that she had been on, there was no interaction between the members other than the most necessary ones. Percy and Annabeth worked together as one unit, Al, Lavinia and Daisy made up another, she, Reyna and Nico made up another group while Ryan and Jakob mostly hung out together. It was as though they were a badly put together machine limping along on duct tape. There _were_ exceptions, when the Argo II members and Nico got along, or Al and Reyna managed to spend more than fifteen minutes with each other without Reyna trying to murder her. But otherwise, it was like a random collection of people who could never get along had been thrown into a quest together.

That night, her nightmares were worse.

Unlike the Argo II, space here was limited, which meant that they had to share the solitary cabin, taking shifts to keep watch. The presence of other people was slightly comforting, but awkward at the same time. At least she’d spent a lot of her time sleeping in the Fifth Cohort barracks, so it wasn’t too bad. The fact that there were only two others in the room helped.

But today her brain decided that it wanted to make sure she didn’t get to sleep properly.

Most of the nightmare were the same, the eidolons attacking, Alaska, Gaia speaking to her mother. It was only later that they went off course.

In her dream, she was covered in a soupy, inky darkness. A voice laughed.

 _Little hero._ It sounded almost amused. _You fight and kill to protect the lives of other killers. So naïve. So trusting. You really shouldn’t be. The world is a dark place._

Hazel struggled, but she couldn’t talk. The voice chuckled.

_You don’t really believe me, do you? What if I showed you something?_

A scene came into focus, showing some kind of warehouse. It was in darkness, making it difficult to see too far. But she felt that familiar tug in her gut, the felling she got whenever a spirit left. Someone had died here. Two people, mortals, if she wasn’t wrong. She allowed her instincts to take over, and turned slowly to the right.

Two bodies were lying there, both of young men somewhere in their thirties. One was short and muscular, red-headed with a scruffy beard and a moustache, while the other was tall and thin like an athlete, dark hair matted to his forehead and blue eyes staring emptily at the wall. The first had three bullet marks on his chest, while the second had clearly been shot in the head. Twin pools of blood spread slowly from their bodies.

Suddenly she found herself gliding out of the warehouse, rushing through the door like it was a mirage, following a retreating figure walking quickly away from the scene. It was night-time, and this part of the city seemed to be mostly dark, without much lighting. Snow swirled down softly like white powder. A river flowed sluggishly in front of them. The person looked young, probably a teenager. Hazel froze when she saw the face.

There was no regret, no fear, no panic. Just firm determination and coldness, even a hint of a grim smile, like it was perfectly normal to walk in the shadows with a gun hidden underneath your jacket. The person took out the gun and tossed it into the river.

She felt someone shaking her awake. She blinked, and almost jumped back on seeing a slightly older version of the girl she’d just seen in her dream.

“Wake up, Metal Magnet,” Al stretched, yawning. “It’s our turn to keep watch now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next update, next week.


	6. Chapter VI

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Update! I'm really sorry for the delay, but classes lately have been murder. I'm thinking of shifting the update schedule to Friday or Saturday nights, US Pacific time. I'm still not happy with this chapter, but whatever, I guess.

**CHAPTER VI**

**AL**

Thunder boomed overhead.

Rain fell down in torrents, making the drains overflow, a continuous pitter-patter of water droplets against the concrete roads. The street lights did their inadequate best to light up what little circles of illumination they created, leaving intermittent dark patches on the streets. Al hurried along, water splashing underneath her feet as she made her way home. The weather was nowhere as bad as it had been last year, but it was still raining heavily. Her soaked clothes stuck to her skin, making her shiver in the cold. Her breath steamed the air.

_No, no please, not again, not again…_

But as always, the nightmare was relentless, dragging her forward. Down the street, through a nondescript door, up the stairs through the trapdoor leading to the terrace, in front of the door to the tiny room on the roof. She noted the way most of the stuff in the house was strewn around. She remembered thinking that Mrs. Stone was gonna be so mad at whoever the idiot who broke into the house had been, the contempt turning to fear when she noted the landlady’s absence from the house and the general silence in the place. She struggled against the force pulling her forward, but it was unbeatable, like a rope mercilessly pulling her towards the place.

By now, a vague dread had settled into the pit of her stomach, and it wasn’t the cold that was making her shiver. The door opened, and Al turned away.

“I believe it is preferrable to have a conversation with both sides facing each other.”

Al blinked. This wasn’t how the nightmare usually went about. She turned to look at a woman in front of her. She was rather sweet-looking, like a grandmother, and lovely in an unpretentious way, with an honest smile, warm brown eyes, and black hair that framed her face in ringlets. Her hair was tucked under a linen shawl, and she wore a dark brown outfit which covered everything but her face. In short, she was exactly the kind of person her father might have tried to fool with his mumbo-jumbo. Textbook mark.

“Um…”

“Sit.” She waved her hand, and suddenly a large couch appeared against one of the walls.

“Who are you?”

She smiled warmly. “Not many people recognize me. My name is Hestia.”

Al sat down on the couch. “You’re the hearth goddess.”

“Indeed. It is not a glorious position, but I am content.”

Al wondered what the decorum to address a goddess was. “Um… why am I here? Is this real? Like the weird dreams demigods have?”

“Of course it is real. And we need to talk.”

“About?”

The goddess waved her hand, and a fire appeared in front of them, though thankfully it didn’t burn the room down. “A warning. About what is to come.”

Al rubbed held her hands over the fire. “Which is?”

Hestia stoked the fire. “You have a strange soul. Changeable. Adaptable. Transient. And yet you have a strange fire within you.”

“Thank you, I guess?”

Hestia looked up at her, the same fire that was in front of them crackling in her eyes. “Two years ago, I talked to Percy Jackson. I told him the same thing that I’m telling you now. Not all decisions need to be spectacular. Sometimes the hardest power to master is the power of restraint.”

“Ohhhkay.” Al frowned. “I have no idea what that means.”

“You are a lot like Hermes, child. You lie, cheat, thieve, and make it seem that you are callous, but you attach yourself to the people you call your own. And that is why I warn you, that there will be pain in the future. Old and familiar. Do not repeat your mistakes. Do not seek revenge. It will only make life harder.”

A chill crept up her spine. “What do you mean?”

“Only this-” Hestia waved her hand, and the fire disappeared. “That there will be a time when you will feel the urge to go down a certain path, and it will only lead to destruction. The other gods do not realize how the games they play might affect mortal lives, and it will end us one day. Remember me on that day, child. Remember what I told you about restraint.”

********************

Al was bored.

As in painfully, maddeningly, mind-numbingly bored.

She’d spent the morning trying to figure out what the hell the goddess had been trying to tell her, but it made about as much sense as Moby Dick (she gave up on it about halfway through the book).

She glanced around, trying to see if there was anything to do. The problem with boats? There were absolutely _no_ marks around. At least no mark she could amuse herself with without a certain Roman with a purple cloak and a very sharp golden spear coming to murder her.

“I’m bored.” A voice complained from behind her. “And no, I’m not going to play any sort of card game with you.”

“Wasn’t even going to ask.” Al scooted to the side, allowing the kid to sit next to her. “You got anything to do?”

“Nope.” Daisy popped the ‘p’ in the sound. “If I did, why would I ask you?”

“Because…” Al pretended to think. “Because I’m nice?”

Daisy gave a snort and laughed. “Who? You?”

Because she was the level-headed older one, Al stuck her tongue out at her.

“What if we pranked someone?” Daisy suggested. “Maybe the Praetor. Because the rest of them are too boring or too nice or actually have a sense of humor, so it won't be fun.”

“Since I have a sense of self-preservation, let’s not.”

“Boring. Who cares?”

“Me? Personally, I don’t like it when scary people aren’t mad at me. Especially when they’re armed.” She remembered her conversation with Hestia, which ruined her mood. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“I’m hurt, Al.”

“I’m not kidding around.” She turned so that they were facing each other. “This… this is big stuff. You really shouldn’t.”

The kid just rolled her eyes. “I think I can take care of myself, thanks.”

“If the prophecies are right, _at least_ three people will die. At least. Probably more. Die, as in _die,_ permanently. And-”

“If-” interrupted the kid. “If the prophecy is right. If the people who die includes one of us. If foxes are blue. If the moon suddenly turned magenta. If a lot of things happened. Do you know what that even sounds like?”

“Don’t throw my own words at me.” Al wagged a finger in her direction.

“Technically, your dad’s words.”

“Technically, my stepdad’s words.”

“Don’t you two have anything better to do?” Reyna walked to sit next to Al. “Keeping watch, perhaps?”

“It’s not our shift.” Al explained.

“So, of course, we’re still keeping watch. And talking. Just a little, Praetor. Nothing serious.”

Reyna rolled her eyes. “I visited the stables at Camp Jupiter almost every day for four years, and I’m sure that that statement had more shit in it than all I’ve ever seen in the stables.”

Al gave a mock gasp. “You _do_ have a sense of humor, Reyna!”

“Very funny.”

“C’mon, this is honestly a shock. Kid, back me up.”

“Seeing that this is regarding someone who could put me on latrine duty for life in the Camp, I’d rather not.”

“A wise choice.” Reyna agreed.

Al sighed dramatically. “Et tu, Brute? Then fall, Caesar!”

“You’re not even Roman.”

“That’s not the point.”

“I’m just saying-”

“Then don’t-”

“Stop it, you two.” Reyna grumbled. “You’re giving me a headache, and I didn’t even get any aspirin with me.” Al smirked. “Then-”

Percy stepped in, making a two-fingered salute. “Aye, Praetor! Land ahoy!”. He noticed the unimpressed looks everyone gave him. “Too soon?”

*****************

“Water, food, and repair materials, because those pirates really did a number on the ship.” Annabeth tapped her fingers on the railing. “We should split up, get stuff faster that way. Who’s getting off?”

“Me.” Hazel raised her hand. “Please.”

“All right, who else?”

A chorus of voices soon followed, everyone wanting to get off at the first opportunity possible.

“Silence!”

Al didn’t care for authority figures, but she had to admit that it was pretty impressive how Reyna managed to get everyone to shut up with a single word.

“The things Ella has been talking about,” Reyna frowned. “Should we check it out?”

“Why not?” Jakob spoke up from the other side of the table. “It’s not like we have a deadline or something, right?”

“Child of war, right? Is that me or you?” Annabeth looked at Reyna.

Reyna shrugged. “Best idea? Both of us split up and look. Whoever gets it first is the one.”

“By ‘it’, do you mean trouble?” Al noticed Reyna’s look. “Why is everyone all ‘doom and gloom’ today? Never mind, I’ll just shut up.”

Daisy smirked at her, making her roll her eyes.

Reyna cleared her throat. “All right, let’s focus, shall we?” Her tone made it clear that it wasn’t really a question. “We should make groups of three, two with Annabeth, two with me, and three others for supplies. Percy will remain on the boat to guard it.”

“I can go with Annabeth.” Percy suggested.

“You may, as long as you find a volunteer to take your place on the boat.” Reyna added.

Percy looked hopefully at everyone, but suddenly everyone seemed to be interested in their boots. He scowled. “Fine, you win.” He didn’t look happy to be away from Annabeth, but even he had to agree that it made sense. Plus, he was the only one who wasn’t sick of the sea.

“Volunteers?”

Al raised her hand. “Can I go grocery shopping?”

“Surely you don’t want to miss out on the ghosts, Al?” Daisy teased.

“Shut up, Grape Head.”

“Grape Head?”

“Stop. It. Both. Of. You.” Reyna gritted her teeth. “Hazel, Lavinia, you can go with Annabeth. Nico, Al and I will go together. Ryan, Jakob, and the kid can go get supplies. We’ll meet back here in three hours unless something happens.”

“Kid has a name.” she muttered. “Starts with D.”

“It’s Dummy.” Al clarified.

Daisy flipped her off.

“The next person to say anything unrelated to the quest,” Reyna glared, “will be thrown overboard by yours truly, and I’m sure that Nico will help.”

The ghost dude gave a creepy smile. “With pleasure.”

Al decided to shut up. She wasn’t really enthusiastic about it, but she understood why Reyna wanted her along on this side mission. If they really encountered the ghosts, she didn’t want the San Juan story to spread among the others. Safe to assume that Nico already knew, then even if they encountered these ghosts, no one was going to feed the rumor mill.

That didn’t mean she had to be happy about it. “All right, but if this turns into some sort of cheap horror flick with zombies trying to eat my brains, you guys are on your own.”

*******************

Al didn’t have to go looking for trouble.

Ninety-nine percent of the time, she was the one who’d started trouble, mostly because she was bored. Well, technically, this whole quest was somehow because of her, but she couldn’t really help her existence.

Today, though, they didn’t run into trouble at all.

Her feet were killing her, and she was quickly losing patience with this ‘hope for the best’ strategy. She was pretty sure that Reyna’s watch was rigged, since no way it had been just over half an hour. Not to mention that she somehow ended up with the most serious, boring, companions ever. She wondered how long her life expectancy would be if she tripped them both and ran away.

“Don’t even think of it.” Reyna warned.

“Think of what?”

“Whatever you plan on thinking. It can't be anything good.”

“You’re getting good, Praetor.”

“Don’t patronize me.”

“Classic younger sibling case. ‘Don’t patronize me’, ‘Don’t interfere in my business’, etc, etc etc. You seem to devolve into a child the closer you get to Hylla.”

“What’s wrong with younger siblings?” Nico interrupted. “And trying to get a rise out of someone who’s armed because you’re bored isn’t a good idea.”

“I love getting a rise out of anyone, period.” At least they were talking now. “Also, younger siblings are like cats.”

Nico blinked. “Cats?”

Al nodded. “Whenever you try to get close to them, they’ll brush you off and growl and pretend they don’t know you, but damn, if you get a moment to yourself or really need to do something urgently, there they’ll be, whining and tapping and crawling over you and generally having no sense of privacy.”

“Oh really?” Nico asked drily.

“They also tend to be really grumpy people with zero sense of humor.”

“We have a sense of humor.” Reyna smiled slowly. “We could throw you into the water and laugh as we watch you drown.”

“Joke’s on you, I can swim. And that isn’t humor, that is sadism, which I know you won't indulge in. You’re too Roman for that.”

“You know that half the Romans were stark raving mad, don’t you?”

“I just said you weren’t a sadist.” Al took a few steps away from the two teenagers. “I never said you weren’t crazy.”

“Not in the water, right?” Nico turned to Reyna.

Reyna shook her head. “Percy would come to know.”

“Maybe that garden.” Nico smirked. “I can do it so no one finds the body.”

Al swallowed. “You know, guys….” Her vision tunneled.

“What happened? _Cat_ got your tongue?” A slow smile spread across Reyna’s face.

But it didn’t matter. About ten feet away, a tall, bearded man with long hair and watery green eyes was sitting across the road, staring right at her. A wave of anger rushed through her, blotting out everything else. It must have shown on her face, because Reyna turned around.

“Al? What are you-” she stopped. “Wait.”

Nico turned and froze. “Is that Cupid?”

That snapped Al out of her thoughts. “Cupid? If that is Cupid, then I’m Captain America.”

“No.” Reyna murmured. “It’s Circe. What is _she_ doing here?”

“We’re all seeing different stuff.” Al realized.

“Nemesis.” Nico growled. “Hazel told me about her.”

“So,” Al tried to get her anger under control. “Do we meet her?”

“You said it.” Reyna touched the hilt of her sword. “We’re searching for trouble.”

“I hate myself.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to all those who reviewed or gave kudos to this story. Your encouragement keeps me going.


	7. Chapter VII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... my dumb ass is back with another chapter. I won't be able to post a chapter next Sunday, so maybe the update will be on Friday (hopefully).

**NICO**

Generally, Nico was happy to spend time with ghosts.

They didn’t bother him with stupid jokes. They didn’t try to make him interact with other people. They didn’t get hungry every five seconds.

On the other hand, roaming in Portland _searching_ for a herd of unpleasant ghosts with a legacy of Hermes by his side was something he definitely was not looking forward to.

He’d been keeping a close hand on his wallet (he’d had more than a few experiences with the Stolls), but Al didn’t look interested in it, though she seemed to have guessed his intentions and smirked at him.

“You’re gonna trip over yourself.” Daisy teased Al.

Al rolled her eyes. “You should know by now, kid, I never trip.”

“Well, of course, thieves never trip.”

“Well, my grandad is the god of thieves so-”

“You’re a moron.”

“As are you.” Al reached out and ruffled the kid’s hair.

“Idiot.” She swatted her hand away.

“Dum-”

“I think we should split up and go our ways, shouldn’t we?” Reyna interjected. Thank the gods for the only other sane person on this quest.

“Dam right.” Percy grinned. “I have some fish friends to talk to.”

*****************

There were no ghosts around.

Of course, there was the usual aura of dead people buried in nearby graveyards, but there was nothing that would attract their attention. So far, their search in Portland had been a waste. The aimless walking was getting on his nerves. Al humming the macarena and Bad Romance to annoy Reyna wasn’t helping.

He almost welcomed the opportunity of meeting Nemesis. Almost.

He knew why Nemesis appeared to him as Cupid. He had still held a grudge against Cupid, Eros, whoever he was from his time in the ruins at Split. Hopefully he wouldn’t lose his temper.

Reyna had a tense expression and hand on her sword, ready to be drawn at any moment. Al’s expression had suddenly become cold, eyes dark and hard as basalt.

Nemesis was sitting on the opposite side of the road, next to a bike with a pie shaped slice removed from the wheels like Pac-Man. Cupid had disappeared to reveal a woman. She had curly black hair and a bony frame and wore black leather biker’s pants, tall leather boots, and a bloodred leather jacket, looking right at them with a smirk on her face. Attached to her belt was a curled whip. Her red leather jacket had a subtle design to it—twisted branches of an apple tree populated with skeletal birds.

They approached her rather warily, not quite sure what they were getting into. Al looked like she just wanted to get the hell out of there.

“Nemesis.” Reyna said when they reached.

“Praetor.” Smirked the goddess. “Son of Hades. And the oddity.”

“Some things never change, do they.” Muttered Al.

“And we are here because?” Reyna asked.

“Dear me, I didn’t get you here. You walked here by yourself.” Nemesis cackled. “But I enjoy talking to demigods.”

“Do you have anything to tell us, then?” Nico scowled. He hated the parts where the gods talked only in riddles and pretended to help while they did nothing.

“Do you _want_ me to talk, boy?” Nemesis raised her eyebrows. “the last person to talk to me was Leo Valdez, along with your sister. I warned him then, that he would need my help one day. But my help is never free. There is a price. There is always a price.”

“I thought you were the goddess of revenge, not Bargain Mart deals.” Al quipped. Did she really have that big a death wish?

“I wouldn’t dismiss revenge too lightly, mortal. Especially not you.”

Just for an instant, something indecipherable flashed through Al’s eyes, but the next moment it was gone. Nico wondered what that look meant.

“Athena thinks that she can play the demigods as she wants.” Nemesis smiled brilliantly. If she hadn’t such a narrow and twisted face, it might even have suited her, but it just made her look grimmer somehow, like a vulture bent on enjoying the carcasses. “But she can’t. she is playing with fire, and she won’t even realize when her hands are ablaze. Hera got away with it once, but it won’t happen again. They don’t even realize that the world is being ripped apart.”

“We’re being played?”

She looked right at Reyna, and a chill went through his spine. “You.”

“Me what?” Reyna’s hand went to her sword.

“You will need this.” Nemesis took out a fortune cookie and handed it to her.

Reyna looked at it. “I will need a fortune cookie?”

Nico felt like someone had blocked his windpipe. “Don’t take it.”

Nemesis’s eyes gleamed. “You could listen to him, of course. There is a price for my help. Always. If you break open the cookie, you will get the help you need, but you will also have to pay the debt. But without it, you might fail. What would you have, safety, or a chance at success?”

“I’ll do it without your help.” Reyna growled, but she slipped the cookie into her pocket. Nico clenched his hands.

Nemesis cackled. “I’ll take my leave, then. I’d hurry onwards on your journey if I were you, Praetor. There are no ghosts in Portland, except for those of the past.” She stood up. “Or maybe not. But I think I will be your companion again for some time now, Al.”

The goddess started to become brighter, and Nico turned away. When he looked again, she was gone.

********************

As soon as Nemesis left, they had hurried back to the boat, only to find Percy having an animated conversation with a dolphin.

“We need to go.” Nico told him as soon as the dolphin went away. “Nemesis said there were no ghosts in Portland.”

“Great.” Percy leaned against the railing. “And how do we find the others?”

“We wait.” Reyna checked her watch. “They’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

“Oh great.” Al muttered. “More boredom.”

Sadly, Nico agreed with her.

*********************

Nico was worried.

It had been over four hours now, and the three demigods from the Fifth still hadn’t returned.

Annabeth had returned with Hazel and Lavinia an hour ago with the same report- nothing of interest. Ever since then, they’d been trying to iris message the other three, to no avail. Al had been restless ever since they returned, insisting that they should go out looking for the demigods, even though the others warned her that splitting up was a bad idea. She’d been pacing the deck restlessly for a good hour, and probably would have swum to the shore and to Hades with precautions if Reyna wasn’t tailing her like a shadow.

Just then a shout was heard from the docks. Ryan and Jakob were running, carrying a sack between them, while the kid followed with her sword in her hand, pursued by-

A shudder went through him as he remembered the first monster he’d seen. He’d been too scared to react, much less face it, and now the manticore was pursuing them again. The only thing stopping him from running at his full speed were a large number of grapevines tangled between his feet. Right behind him, about a couple dozen cyclopes followed armed with clubs. Suddenly Nico wished Frank were here to fire his arrows at the beast.

Hazel closed her eyes in concentration, and half a dozen spades and other shipping equipment hit Thorn on the head. He roared in rage and slapped them away. Reyna and Percy jumped onto the docks, weapons drawn, Percy forming large waves just behind him. Nico followed them, the rest hot at his heels.

THWACK. Lavinia fired her manibulasta straight at Thorn’s head. Reyna took out a cyclops with a flick of her spear. Percy smashed a wave into Thorn, using its momentum to lift himself up to his level, bringing Riptide down on his head. Thorn jumped back, shielding himself with his tail and shooting spikes at the demigods. Hazel and Lavinia helped the three to get the supplies on the ship, while Annabeth stabbed a cyclops in the forehead. Even Al seemed to be able to hold her own against one of the monsters, though it didn’t look as if the fight would end anytime soon.

Nico touched the ground, and skeleton warriors burst from the ground. There weren’t many, but they just needed enough to get away from this mess. He drew his sword and attacked.

His body went on autopilot. Slash, doge, stab, roll, in any order to cause maximum damage and stay alive. He stabbed a cyclops in the chest and rolled between his disintegrating legs to stick his sword against another, dodging to the side as one of Thorn’s spikes whistled past his ear.

Distantly, he noted that the crowd of monsters had thinned out, though Thorn was still going strong against Percy. Percy was keeping him off-balance, but he was having a hard time dodging his lion paws and spikes.

“Retreat!” Reyna yelled.

“Brilliant plan.” Al stabbed a monster, and seemed a little surprised when it disintegrated. “Question: how?”

“Give up, little demigods.” Thorn spat. “My new master is more powerful than that Hermes brat ever was. He will reward me greatly for this.”

“Yeah, that’s if you win, Spikey.” Percy blasted him with more water. “The only thing you’re achieving here is a participation award and a free trip to Tartarus.”

“Please, no Nike references.” Hazel begged. “Once was enough.”

Thorn gave a grim smile. “Foolish demigods.” He whacked his tail against Percy’s water shield, breaking it and making him stagger back with the force, spikes flying off in various directions.

A sudden chill went through him, like a spirit had just left. His chest felt tight. _NO!_ He turned to where Percy had landed, but he was still alive, spitting water to the side. A deep gash was bleeding from where Thorn’s tail struck him, but he was still alive. A weight lifted off his chest. _False alarm._

A knife flipped through the air, end over end, lodging itself in his flesh. He roared and pulled it out, throwing it back in the same direction. Reyna tackled Al out of the way, and the knife clattered to the ground. Ryan stabbed at the manticore, but Thorn just swiped his paw at him and threw him to the side. Hazel and Percy attacked him together, while Annabeth and Jakob stabbed him from the other side.

Al ran up to him and handed him her sword. “Here. You’re a better fighter than I am. You can get him.” She dove under a spike and pulled out a knife. Nico nodded and charged at Thorn while he was distracted, stabbing him straight through his gut. “Back to shadows.”

Thorn howled as his body dissolved. Nico stumbled back as his tail fell down like an extremely gross spoil of war.

“Guys?” a whisper from behind made them turn.

Hazel was crouched next to someone unconscious.

No, not unconscious. _Dead._

************************

For a moment, he just stared at her blankly.

Hazel looked up at him. “It… it happened so quickly, no one even saw it happening, none of us could react-” her voice broke.

Nico didn’t need an explanation. He’d seen it more than enough times in the two wars: the projectile hitting the target, the body being thrown behind, the head snapping back; it was all too familiar.

He crouched next to the broken body of the preteen with the spike driven through the chest. Dark eyes stared emptily at the sky, forever lifeless. The kid’s face was pale, bloodstains spreading over the purple camp shirt. He touched his hand to her face, but it only confirmed what he knew.

_This was what Bianca’s body must have-_

_No. stop. Don’t go there._

He looked up at the others and shook his head.

Most of them looked shocked, frozen in place. Percy looked like he couldn’t decide what to do. Even Reyna looked stumped. Al was just staring at the same spot, hands clenched and a blank look on her face. The knife in her hand was digging into her palm, a red trail dripping from her clenched fist. For a couple of minutes, everyone just stood there in silence.

“Well?” Jakob whispered. “What- what are we supposed to do now?”

Reyna snapped herself out of her stupor. “We camp here for today.” She said in a low voice. “Nico, can you-”

“I will.” He knew what she was asking for, and he was only too ready to do it. Even on a quest, the dead deserved a proper funeral. Especially on a quest.

******************

They camped in Portland that evening.

After the burial, which was in a local cemetery, most of them returned to the ship, though they didn’t set sail. The Romans normally cremated their dead, but there was no crematorium around, and they didn’t have a shroud or want to attract attention by doing it in the open.

He found Al sitting cross-legged in front of the grave, staring at the crude headstone emotionlessly, a hollow and empty look in her eyes.

“You might want to get that looked at.” Nico pointed at her hand, which was still bleeding.

Al ignored his statement. “When do we leave?”

“Tonight.” He looked away. “We can’t delay looking for Camp Half-Blood forever.”

“Good.” She pressed her palm to her knee, staining the jeans with blood, a deep maroon color in the darkness. “We should keep moving.”

Nico blinked. “You don’t want to stop?”

“No, of course not.” Al dusted her jeans and stood up. “The faster we go, the better it will be.”

Something was wrong. “What do you mean?”

“Why, the quicker we get there, the faster I’ll be able to kill this son of a bitch master of that manticore.” She examined her hand casually, like they were discussing the weather. “I’d like to make him regret what he did, but I can’t control other people’s emotions. But I can kill him. And kill him I will. I swear it on the River Styx.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be honest, I don't feel I've been able to do justice to this scene, but *shrugs*.  
> I'd love to hear from y'all, and constructive criticism is always welcome (and sometimes, sorely needed, like for the last two chapters).


	8. Chapter VIII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, updating today instead of tomorrow, because I have an exam tomorrow. An exam, on Sunday! Wish me luck, guys.

**AL**

Her room in the top floor of a tiny building, if it could be called that, was very small. She had paced about in it so often that she knew its exact measurements: ten feet by ten. Under the cot was a tin trunk. Its contents ranged from old random papers to clothes and matches and crumpled notes. She had resolved that one day, when she made some money, she would throw the trunk and everything else out of the window, and leave the street forever. But until then she was a prisoner. The rent was nominal, the window had a view of the opposite building and the street, and she had nowhere else to go.

She did not live entirely alone. Most days, the other kid from the garage shared the room, especially when it snowed and the streets were too cold.

Usually she woke early in the mornings, as sleep was fitful, uneasy, crowded with dreams. She knew it was five o'clock when she head the boy who delivered the newspapers to other families ringing his bicycle’s bell.

There was nothing very unusual about Daisy being a homeless kid. They were tuppenny a dozen in this area, most of them unwilling to go to foster homes even if they could.

What was unusual in her was her cheerfulness, a quality rare in a street kid running away from a place of abuse. And it was not so much her positive attitude to life that appealed to her (most people she knew were completely resigned to their lot) as the smile that flickered across his face regardless of whether she was sad or happy.

“I see stuff,” the kid confided in her once, “stuff that no one else sees. People who aren’t quite people. Teenagers in orange shirts with weapons. Sometimes they used to come to my house. When mom heard about it, she threw me out. Said I was crazy, and a danger to her.”

“Next time you see things like that,” Al said, wondering whether it was schizophrenia, “will you show them to me?”

“Of course.”

Al began to look forward to her presence. She dispelled some of her own loneliness. She could study better, knowing that she did not have to be alone day in and day out for the rest of the years until she could get a formal education. Maybe she saw something in the child, a ghost, perhaps, or a memory, of her own sibling. And Daisy came to her probably because she was the first person to have taken a personal interest in her life, and because she saw nothing frightening in her strange visions.

*****************

Al loved storms.

Perhaps it had something to do with her childhood, spent first in London and then in Bombay before making her way to California and then New York. Until the rain stops, Bombay is fresh and clean and alive, water swirling over the tress and the roofs of the city, and the parched ground soaking it up, exuding a fragrance that comes only once in a year, the fragrance of quenched earth, that most exhilarating of smells.

She loved the explosions tearing through the sky, the lightning blazing through the air, the soul-baring ferocity of them. Sometimes they mirrored her thoughts, straining to be free, the harsh burst of wind and water perhaps reflecting some of her chaotic soul.

But not today.

Today she felt nothing.

Numb.

That was all she felt.

No despair, no grief, no anger, no denial.

Just numbness.

She wasn’t sure how long she’d been sitting in front of the grave. It wasn’t like she was thinking of anything.

She stared at the photographs in her hand. Two photographs.

The first showed a man with black hair and blue-grey eyes, tanned skin and a bright smile sitting on a bench. On his right sat a seven-year old with short-cropped curly black hair and dark brown eyes. On his left sat a two-year old with the same features as the first child, the same complexion, the same eyes, the same hair color. The man had his arms slung around their shoulders, as if to say proudly: _these are_ my _kids._ The photograph had been clicked at the perfect moment, when the man looked at the camera, while the two kids looked at each other. There was an easy grin on the older one’s face, eyes twinkling mischievously at the other, as though sharing an inside joke. The younger kid was smiling back at her sister, eyes gleaming with humor and a tiny bit of love and awe.

It hurt her to look at it, but she still carried it with her. Probably because it was the only reminder of her family. Back when she didn’t have any qualms about her father’s business. Back when her sister looked at her like she hung the moon.

The other photograph was more recent, with the Empire State Building in the background. Her sixteen-year old self grinned back at her, hands in her pockets. The twelve-year old next to her was making bunny ears over her head and winking at the camera.

She kept the two photographs together. The first for memory, the second for hope. That you could start over. You could rebuild. Begin again.

Now it felt like a joke. A slap to the face. A mockery of that sentiment.

Most of them came and left. Nico sat down and talked for a while. Then he too, was gone.

After some time, she too, left. There was nothing but cold flesh and bone there now.

She’d seen it far too often to have any sympathy for people who wanted to believe in life after death. People flocked to her father like moths to a flame, begging him to ‘contact’ their dead friends and relatives, which he did, for a princely sum, of course. She didn’t feel any pity for those people who got robbed. They were fools. They got what was coming to them. Dead was dead. And that was it. Praying and wishing and denying didn’t help anyone, and it didn’t help you feel better in the long run.

But then, neither did revenge.

_Oh God, I haven’t been caught up in a spell, have I?_

_No. Some people do drugs, others go to charlatans, but deep down, we’re all searching for shelter from the harsh reality of death._

_And now I’m talking to myself. Yay._

_Well, it’s that joke. First sign of madness, talking to yourself. Second sign, replying back._

_Wow. I’m nuts._

_To be fair, I was nuts since the day I was born. I’m stark raving mad now._

_Shut up,_ she told herself. Think of the quest.

The _quest._

Rage boiled over her in waves, turning her vision red. Black sparks flew from her hands, barely controlled. No one spoke to her. Pedestrians just stepped out of her way.

Her hand was bleeding uncontrollably now, but somehow it didn’t matter. She didn’t care about the pain. It just made her clench her hand harder and her anger sharper.

She slipped aboard the Pax, not really in a mood to talk to anyone. Lavinia made her way towards her, but she must have seen something in her eyes, because she backed away faster than a terrified horse.

The boat glided gently through the sea. The sea was still, the dark waves lapping gently against the sides in the night. The sea breeze blew against her face, smelling of sea and salt and sand.

This was wrong, wrong, _wrong._ How could everything be so peaceful when all she wanted to do was scream and rage and rip apart the world?

Fury felt like a snake trying to crawl out of her skin. Like a creature writhing in her gut. Punching the walls didn’t help. She felt like someone was slowly choking the life out of her, so she came to the deck or aft or whatever Percy liked to call it. She wasn’t in any mood to keep her sea terms straight.

Not that it was any easier to breathe here. The back of her eyes burned with unshed tears. All she wanted to do was curl up into a ball and sob, but there wasn’t really any privacy on a boat like the Pax. So instead, she stared out at the sea.

She sensed, rather than saw Reyna join her at the railing.

“Don’t be an idiot.” She said immediately.

Al scowled. “What the hell do you mean?”

Reyna focused her black eyes on her. “I talked to Nico. Al, Nemesis warned you-”

“Nemesis _taunted_ me-”

“That is completely irrelevant-”

“That is the whole point of it-”

“Al, you are not a god!”

“I DON’T HAVE TO BE!”

Reyna closed her eyes and waited before answering. “This guy, whoever he is, has been sending armies to Camp Jupiter and behind us. You going off on a limb on a personal revenge mission isn’t going to help.”

“Yeah, well, fun fact: once the game is over, the king and the pawn go back into the same box.”

“But during the game, pawns are expendable, kings are not.”

Her grip on the railings tightened. “You don’t think I can do it, do you?”

Reyna hesitated. “No. I don’t think you can.”

“Vincere aut mori.”

“Conquer or die.” Reyna translated.

“Exactly.” Al looked her in the eye. “I’ll have to fight the guy someday. If I do, I want to win, and I don’t have a choice. I _have_ to win.”

“Stubborn, are we?”

“Well, it’s not like the stakes are high. No big deal, just the future of humanity.”

“You’ve got a really high opinion of yourself, haven’t you?”

Al smiled humorlessly and made a mock bow. “Yes, my queen.” She sobered up almost immediately. “Besides, I’ve already sworn on the Styx. No going back.”

A crease appeared between Reyna’s eyebrows. “That was stupid.”

“I don’t care.” She growled.

“You can’t do this.” Reyna insisted. “Al, this is madness. Your little revenge mission is going to get you killed, and that will destroy the quest. You don’t realize-”

“The quest? THE QUEST?” Al roared. All the anger she was feeling suddenly boiled over at the word. If it weren’t for the quest, they wouldn’t be in this mess. If it weren’t for the quest, no one would have died. The only person who’d been a constant for her for years would be alive. “That’s why you’re here. That’s all you care about, isn’t it? The quest and your stupid camp. You think I give a damn about the quest?”

“Calm down, Al.” God, she wanted to deck the Roman then and there. She didn’t get how she could be so cold and practical. “We don’t know whether he or she is really hostile. Nemesis said that we were being played. It’s just like the Giant War, when we thought the Greeks had fired on us. We don’t know what we’re getting into. Straight up going in guns blazing isn’t going to help-”

“Maybe you don’t understand,” the rage was choking her from within. “but I do what I want, _Praetor._ ” She spat out the last word. “I’ll do whatever I need to complete my oath. Stand aside, and I’ll go past you. Stand in my way,” her fists were clenched. “and I’ll go through you.”

“Go through me?” Reyna asked drily.

Al turned to face her. “Yes, Praetor. Maybe I can't slice monsters to dust like you, or make the elements obey me like Percy or Nico, but I’m the most cold-hearted and callous bastard you’ll ever meet. I’ll go through you with as little hesitation as if I had to go through a cobweb, and you won't even know it.” Her eyes gleamed strangely in the dark. “What I’m trying to tell you is, stay out of the way. There will be destruction, and I really don’t want any of my friends caught up in it.”

“Glad to know you consider me a friend.” Reyna’s face was like marble. “Though I don’t know what to think of your crazy ideas. One condition: whatever you do, I’m in.”

“What?”

“Whatever you do,” her expression reminded Al of a hawk. “I will be in on it. No running off on your own. No secrets. No lies. No tricks.”

Al stared at Reyna. She felt like a storm was brewing within her: rage, grief, hatred swirling within her like clouds in a thunderstorm. The Roman’s demeanor was unruffled and calm and strong, everything that Al was not, and she hated her for it, despised her, detested her. She wondered what it would feel like to punch the Praetor, to see the mask broken for once, to see some emotion on her face. But it would only end with her hurting herself, in the loss of a friend, an ally. Reyna wouldn’t let her do what she wanted without checking all the options, but she would be easy to get rid of when the time came. She’d spent enough of her life running away from police officers, one Roman wouldn’t be too difficult to lose.

So she extended her hand instead. “Deal.”

***************************

Al had never been to Seattle.

They were sailing through a large bay, making their way towards a cluster of downtown buildings. Neighborhoods rolled across a series of hills. From the tallest one rose an odd white tower with a saucer on the top, like a spaceship. Seattle looked like a beautiful place, with inlets and bridges, wooded islands dotting the bay, and snow-capped mountains rising in the distance.

Reyna literally threatened her at swordpoint to follow her and Hazel to the Amazon base. Apparently, the Amazons think too kindly about boys, but Annabeth and Lavinia couldn’t come along, because Hylla was still bitter about Circe’s island, and taking Lavinia along would be ‘a disaster’ if Hylla was anything like Reyna. She must really not trust her to not do something rash. They got some great salty caramel chocolate at a candy store Hazel recommended, though it tasted like sawdust to her. Somehow people treading on eggshells around her was making her feel worse. She just wanted to pretend that none of it was real, that it was a normal day. They found some coffee so strong her head felt like a vibrating gong. That made her feel better. Partially.

Finally, they wandered south of downtown, into a plaza surrounded by smaller glass and brick buildings. Her nerves started tingling. She looked around, sure she was being watched. “There,” Hazel said. The office building on their left had a single word etched on the glass doors: AMAZON.

The lobby was like an empty fish tank – glass walls, a glossy black floor, a few token plants and pretty much nothing else. Against the back wall, a black stone staircase led up and down. In the middle of the room stood a young woman in a black pantsuit, with long blonde hair and a security guard’s earpiece. Her name tag said EMMA. Her smile was friendly enough, and she couldn’t have been more than eighteen, but her eyes reminded Al of a kite’s, as though they were thinking about who might attack them next.

Reyna approached her cautiously. Emma stared at her. “May I help you?”

“I would like to talk to Queen Hylla. On behalf of Camp Jupiter.”

Emma nodded. “Of course.” She gave her a long searching look.

“Yes, she looks like her sister. Move on.” Al muttered. Reyna stomped on her foot, so she glared at the Praetor.

Emma moved to the side and pressed a button on her earpiece, talking quietly.

“At least we aren’t being executed.” Hazel said. “Last time I was here, we were going to be killed for trespassing.”

“Trespassers will be killed. Wonderful.”

“What did you expect?” growled Reyna.

“Yes, because killing people is a perfectly reasonable response to-”

“You know, I think both of you should leave it.” Hazel interrupted. They both turned to look at her, and she suddenly looked like she wanted to disappear like Nico could.

“Shall we?” Emma approached them.

**********************

They walked down so many flights of stairs that Al lost count. Finally they emerged in a cavern so big it could have accommodated ten high schools, sports fields and all. Stark fluorescent lights glowed along the rock ceiling. Conveyor belts wound through the room like waterslides, carrying boxes in every direction. Aisles of metal shelves stretched out forever, stacked high with crates of merchandise. Cranes hummed and robotic arms whirred, folding cardboard boxes, packing shipments and taking things on and off the belts. Some of the shelves were so tall they were only accessible by ladders and catwalks, which ran across the ceiling like theatre scaffolding.

Almost all the work seemed to be done by computers and robots. The only humans she could see were some black-suited security women patrolling the catwalks, and some men in orange jumpsuits, like prison uniforms, driving forklifts through the aisles, delivering more pallets of boxes. The men wore iron collars round their necks.

“Slaves.” Al scowled. “That’s it. I hate this place already.”

“They aren’t really slaves.” Emma said disapprovingly. “Only subservient.”

“What a wonderful improvement.”

They crossed a lane of forklift traffic, navigated a maze of conveyor belts and ducked under a row of robotic arms that were packing up boxes. Most of the merchandise looked pretty ordinary: books, electronics, baby diapers.

They entered a smaller cavern that looked like a combination loading zone and throne room. The walls were lined with metal shelves six storeys high, decorated with war banners, painted shields and the stuffed heads of dragons, hydras, giant lions and wild boars. Standing guard along either side were dozens of forklifts modified for war. An iron-collared male drove each machine, but an Amazon warrior stood on a platform at the back, manning a giant mounted crossbow. The prongs of each forklift had been sharpened into oversized sword blades. The shelves in this room were stacked with cages containing live animals. Al couldn’t believe what she was seeing – black mastiffs, giant eagles, a lion-eagle hybrid that must’ve been a gryphon and a red ant the size of a compact car. She watched in horror as a forklift zipped into the room, picked up a cage with a beautiful black pegasus and sped away while the horse whinnied in protest.

“ _And_ animal trafficking. Excellent.”

Emma scowled at her.

At the end of the warehouse was a dais constructed from pallets of books: stacks of vampire novels, walls of James Patterson thrillers and a throne made from about a thousand copies of something called The Five Habits of Highly Aggressive Women. At the base of the steps, Hylla was pacing back and forth in front of the throne. She was probably in her early twenties. She wore a black leather jumpsuit like the rest of the Amazons and black boots. She had no crown, but round her waist was a strange belt made of interlocking gold links, like the pattern of a labyrinth. Her pacing reminded Al of a panther she’d once seen in a zoo. She had the same hard expression as her sister, like she was trying to decide which weapon would cause the most painful death.

She looked up at the sound of their footsteps. She allowed just the barest trace of a smile to grace her features on seeing her sister. Then she turned to Hazel. “Centurion Levesque, I believe. Funny how we end up in the same position as before. If I live tonight, I might help you with whatever you need.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like I said, I've never been to the US. All the Portland descriptions have been taken from The Son of Neptune.


	9. Chapter IX

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! I'm really sorry about the delay in posting, but my exams are approaching, which means I don't get as much time to write my chapters as I usually do. My update schedule is probably going to be wonky for a while. But anyways, next chapter, next week! (Hopefully).

**HAZEL**

In modern pop culture terms, Hazel would like to certify that she was not paid enough for this.

She liked the Amazons. She didn’t agree with their views, but she didn’t dislike them either. Also, the Amazon base was the first time she got to ride Arion.

On the other hand, seeing Al and Reyna snap at each other was definitely a minus.

She suspected Al was up to something, which Reyna knew about, judging by the loud voices she heard the previous night, even if she couldn’t understand what they were saying. Reyna clearly intended to keep an eye on her, and Al seemed to get that too, making her mood even worse.

Hazel still couldn’t believe that they’d lost a demigod already. Even when Leo died, there was always the hope that he’d somehow manage to take the cure, which he did. This was almost as bad as the time Jason died.

Some part of her still felt guilty about the kid’s death. She was her Centurion. It was her responsibility to take care of the unexperienced probatio. And she didn’t even notice anything until she almost stumbled upon the body.

The thing was, she didn’t even know her very well. The only person who had been close to her was Al, and somehow the fact that she didn’t know anything about her made it worse. Twelve was far too early to die.

And now this.

Once they’d managed to fill in Hylla on the quest and the attacks on Camp Jupiter, she led the three of them through several corridors to a glass walkway overlooking a training room that made the ones at Camp Jupiter look like broom closets. The edges were lined with punching bags, though none of them were being used at the present. There was a huge crowd forming a circle at the center of the room, forming a battle ring of sorts, in the middle of which a woman was pacing back and forth.

She was a large woman, built like a fighter, at least six feet tall, blonde hair tied in a braided whip, labryses in hand, chin held up proudly. It looked like she was challenging the spectators. Instead of the usual black Amazon garb, she was dressed in leather armor shielding most of her body. She looked up at them and gave Hylla a thin smile, which the Queen of the Amazons returned with the same I-want-to-stab-you-but-I’m-not-allowed-to look that Reyna used to get whenever she had to deal with Octavian.

“Who is she?” Reyna leaned over the railing. “New competition?”

“What competition?” Al peered over shoulder.

“The Amazons duel for the throne.” Hylla explained. “At midnight, we will duel for the throne, and it is a fight to the death. Tonight, she is my challenger.”

“Fight for the throne? Like a video game? Like Black Panther?”

Reyna groaned. “Not another pop culture reference.”

“Not my fault you don’t watch movies. How can you _not_ watch Avengers?”

“What’s different about her?” Hazel interrupted before they could start again. “I mean, others must have challenged you, too.”

Hylla chuckled bitterly. “I don’t know who her godly parent is, but apparently enhanced speed, strength, and almost unlimited endurance come with the package.”

Al whistled. “That’s cool.”

“Reyna.” Hylla looked at her sister. “I need to talk to you.” She didn’t say it, but the implication was clear, Hazel and Al weren’t welcome to the conversation. “We can talk in my office.”

Reyna scowled slightly. “Whatever, I guess.” she started walking down the corridor. Hazel wondered what the problem was between them.

Faster than Hazel could blink, Hylla wrapped her hand around Al’s neck and slammed her against the railing. Al yelped and tried to pull her hand away, but even if Hylla didn’t have her Amazon belt, Al was no match for her. Hazel moved forward, but Hylla shot her a glare. “Stop.”

She turned back to Al. “Now listen to me very carefully.” She loosened her grip slightly, allowing Al to breathe a little. “I saw the prophecies. _One shall fall by a friend’s hand. Three shall fall. Revenge’s rage fuel the flame._ The only person who we know for sure will have a hand in future events is you. And for some strange reason, you seem to be friendly enough with Reyna.”

Al seemed to be trying to speak, but the only thing that came out was a vague choking noise.

“If at all, during the course of the quest, if my sister dies by your hand, because of your revenge, or any indirect reason caused by you-” she tightened her grip. “I will snap you like a twig. Is that clear?”

Al nodded.

Hylla let her go, and Al collapsed to the floor, coughing and choking. “Next time,” she wheezed. “Can we do this without the strangling part?”

Hylla didn’t even look at her before walking away. Al turned to look at Hazel. “At least you don’t hate me, do you?”

**********************

It was another half hour before they stumbled out of the Amazon base, heading back to the docks.

“You two managed not to argue for once. Nice.” Al commented. Hazel wondered how she knew, but she guessed it was because Reyna wasn’t sufficiently furious enough to just have stepped out of an argument. Or she could have hidden it. The Praetor was an enigma.

“And you finally managed to irritate someone enough to make them try to actually strangle you. Congratulations.”

Al touched the bruises on her neck and winced. “What the hell do you people eat? Hylla picked me up like I was a kitten.”

Reyna’s lips twitched upwards, like she was trying not to smile and failing. “Normally I would ask what provoked such a reaction, but right now I’m suddenly feeling an unexpected and overwhelming surge of fondness for my sister.”

“I hate you. Hazel, you’re my new favorite badass Roman.”

Reyna rolled her eyes. Hazel would have laughed, but she couldn’t get rid of the image of Al calmly tossing a gun into a river, two bodies in her wake.

“We should-” she was interrupted by an iris message appearing right in front of her face. She was so startled that she almost walked through it. “Lavinia?”

“Hazel!” Lavinia ducked as something shot over her head. “Listen, we’re having some trouble with a monster, a kraken or something-”

“Krakens aren’t Greek. Or Roman.” Reyna stepped next to her, trying to look at the background. Sadly, it was obscured by bright pink hair.

“They’re Norse, I think.” Al chimed in.

“Well, it’s definitely attacking us, and Percy says it’s a kraken, so it’s a kraken.” Lavinia waned her hand dismissively.

“We’ll be right there.” Reyna raised her hand to dismiss the message.

“No!” Lavinia yelled. “I called to say, don’t come to the docks. We aren’t there.”

“What?”

Lavinia stepped aside, showing the Pax rushing along the sea, leaving a white trail in its wake. Percy was probably using the sea to push the boat forward. Right behind them, a circular object around ten feet wide was gliding along. Then it let out a low sound, like the horn of a ship, almost like a low bellow, and Hazel realized that it was probably the top of the monster’s head.

Al swallowed. “Will you two hate me if I say I’m glad I’m not on the ship?”

The connection fizzled out for a second, and then Lavinia was back. “As you can see” the connection faded, leaving only garbled sound. “Bah.” The connection came back. “You’re on your own for today. Good afternoon, have a great day, see you tomorrow.”

“Wait-” but the connection had faded. “Dammit.” Reyna growled. “I’m not going back to the Amazon base.”

“We could look for a hotel or another place to stay.” Hazel suggested.

“If you know one that accepts denarii, then by all means.”

“Why not a normal place?” Al asked.

“Because we don’t have mortal money, and no one will take us in for free.” Reyna was pacing along the pavement. “Maybe we _should_ go to the Ama-”

“Huh. Everything’s free if you take it without asking.” Al drew out a brown wallet from her pocket. She turned to Reyna and grinned. “How do you feel about a day in Seattle on your sister’s dime?”

**********************

“For the last time, no.”

“Aw, come on.”

“No, Al, I will _not_ steal a car and drive it at full speed in a city I don’t know and then hand over Hylla’s license for laughs.”

“Boring.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re no fun.”

“Glad to hear it.”

Al sighed. “I’m going to wander a bit. You know, just walk around. Is _that_ allowed?”

Hazel groaned. They’d been roaming around all day, stopping only to eat. Her feet were killing her. It was way past sunset, and she was tired and just wanted to sleep.

Reyna squinted suspiciously. “You think after all those ideas you’ve been spouting-”

“I won't get into trouble. Cross my heart and hope to die and stuff.”

“Somehow, that doesn’t reassure me.”

“I don’t care as long as I don’t have to follow.” Hazel said. “Listen, Reyna, I needed to talk about something-”

“Excellent. You can talk and polish weapons and do whatever. Bye.” Hazel hadn’t seen someone disappear as fast as Al did.

Reyna looked like she was about to start banging her head against the nearest wall. “That demigod is a danger to the world.” She noticed Hazel’s look. “Is everything all right?”

Hazel hesitated. True, it was just a dream, but demigod dreams were never _just_ dreams. They were warnings, often pretty useful to the quest. On the other hand, the idea of Al shooting someone was ridiculous. And yet, the first day she’d entered Camp Jupiter in that car, she had a revolver in her hand…

“Hazel.” Reyna was waving a hand in front of her. “Everything okay?”

“Why don’t we sit there and talk?” She pointed towards a bench.

********************

Reyna was a good listener.

She didn’t interrupt her until she was finished. “You’re sure it was Al?”

“Yes.” Hazel wouldn’t have told her unless she was sure. “There’s more.”

“Go on.”

“Daisy, when she died, there was a manticore spike buried inside her. But it was pointed wrong.”

Reyna frowned. “Pointed wrong, as in?”

“It was driven in from the back.” Hazel hadn’t noted it back then, but it had struck her suddenly later. “But we had our backs to the sea. We all did. Unless, for some reason, she was facing seawards, got struck straight through the middle, and twisted one-eighty degrees to fall down, it doesn’t make sense.”

Reyna’s expression was hard as marble. “Meaning someone stabbed her from behind. It can't have been Percy or Annabeth or Nico or the two of us, which means it was one of the four new people on the quest.”

“Surely not Lavinia.” Hazel said. “I think that would have stood out, what with the pink hair and all. Plus, it just isn’t like her.”

“It isn’t like Al, either.” Reyna pointed out. “And yet there is no way that Al didn’t notice what you just said, and yet she didn’t say a word about it. And frankly, Ryan and Jakob have been about as involved as boxes of ballast in the quest. What do you know about the two of them?”

“They are as fine, as far as I can see. Pretty ordinary.” Truth was, Hazel couldn’t really recollect anything out of the ordinary about them, other than the fact that Jakob loved to complain about everything.

Reyna slammed her hand suddenly on the bench, making her jump. “None of this makes sense.” She growled. “Why _ten_ people for this quest? Why were five of them new and untrained demigods? Why did Nemesis come to warn us? Why does it look like Al is on our side one moment and then it looks like a trick the next? If the kid was really murdered, then who did it? Why would Al stab her friend like that and then mourn her and swear revenge? On the other hand, if someone else is playing games with us, who is coordinating the attack on Camp?” She stood up and started pacing impatiently. “Give me Polybotes any day. At least we knew what we were facing. But to trust someone whom we know nothing about-”

Hazel could feel the same frustration building up in her. It was like reading a book with all the chapters in the wrong order, or in which the writer had deliberately set out to confuse.

“We should try to get some sleep.” Hazel suggested. “Maybe that will help.”

“Good idea.” Reyna said without turning. “You can go.” She pressed her hand against her temples, like she was trying to reset her brain. It was clearly a dismissal, and even though Hazel had a million questions, the Roman part of her made her trudge up the stairs of the guest house, though not without wondering where Al had disappeared to at this time of the night.

********************

Why did she always have to get dreams?

This time, she was inside Camp Jupiter, inside the bookstore. If ever there was a place that needed to be organized, it was the bookstore. Hazel enjoyed reading books from the War, and Agatha Christie’s mysteries were a personal favorite, but it was murder trying to actually find the books in that mess. From the cashier’s station/information desk at the center of the room, freestanding shelves radiated in all directions, crammed with tomes of every size and shape. Two ladders led to a railed balcony, also wall-to-wall books. Overstuffed reading chairs filled every available corner. Huge windows offered views of the city aqueduct and the hills beyond. The sunlight streamed in like warm honey, making the shop feel comfortable and drowsy. It would’ve been the perfect place to plop down and leaf through a relaxing novel, if it hadn’t been for Ella. She was sitting on a black leather chair, scratching her feet on the seat and shredding the leather.

She hit herself on the head. “Bad Ella.” She hit her head against the chair. “Bad Ella, Ella scared, Ella send friends into trap, she scare Ella, bad, bad, bad-”

Tyson was standing to the side, looking worried. “Ella is not bad.” He declared. “Ella is pretty. Ella is nice. Tyson likes Ella.”

“No!” Ella slammed herself against the chair again, sobbing. “Ella is bad, now demigod is dead, bad, bad-”

Tyson stepped forward and wrapped her in a hug. “It’s okay.” He said seriously. “We’ll figure it out.”

“They won't.” a new voice said.

Suddenly the scene dissolved and she found herself looking at darkness. Slowly her eyes adjusted to the dark. The room she was in was dimly lit, brown wood walls barely letting light enter the room. The only light came from a phone screen in front of her, showing an ongoing call with someone named James. Someone was sitting on a chair in front of the desk where the phone was kept. He had his head in his hands, making it impossible to see his features. “Don’t be an idiot, James.” He raised his head slightly. “They are naïve, but they aren’t stupid. You’re going to be the end of us.”

“What other choice do we have?” The first voice demanded. “Five years ago, when we started it all, we knew this was going to happen, we _agreed_ to it-”

“I know.” The person in front of her groaned. “By God, I know.”

James spoke in a gentle voice. “Are you all right? Listen to me, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. It’s perfectly fine-”

“No.” The other person’s voice was firm. “Whatever you do, I’m going to be with you.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” The voice was determined as he reached to press the end call button. “Blood for blood, brother, we are one.”


	10. Chapter X

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Sorry for the late update. I might have to shift update schedules to Saturday mornings (US Pacific time) or Sunday nights. My schedule keeps changing like crazy.  
> I'm thinking of keeping every tenth chapter in a third person POV, perhaps with flashbacks. Also, I'm feeling that the story is being too even and flat, like a textbook or something, and I'm going to try and change that. Hopefully. I'll try.

**TWELVE YEARS AGO**

Fascination for the world was already strong and steady within James at the age of six. It fascinated him how easily other kids cried or smiled, how easily they got worked up and how fragile they were, having recently witnessed the first person melt into shadows when he was enraged, the look of fear and agony almost overwhelming, even for him. It had caused quite a ruckus, and his mother had to come to the school and talk to each person and child there separately, white clouds of mist appearing at intervals. Despite that, he’d been withdrawn from the school. James had not fully understood what the deal was, but he had liked his school enough to know he hadn’t wanted to leave it forever just yet.

He didn’t have too many friends, but he had company, and that was enough. Now he didn’t even have that. Months after months it was just him studying things like Greek and Latin. He never left the house, depending only on others to tell him what it was like. But today, months later, he got to go to the park nearby. He kicked his ball with full force, trying to see how far he could make it roll.

He was rather pleased when he saw it clear the sycamore tree and fall into the clump of bushes near the park bench. He was eight now, and he felt a man should be able to prove his strength. He ran over to the bushes to find it, trampling over fallen sticks in his way.

Suddenly he heard low voices, like someone was trying to argue quietly. He tiptoed into the bushes, trying to find a place to hide. Low voices meant interesting stuff. Low voices mean secrets.

He was wearing a new pair of jeans, and he didn’t want to get it dirty. But it was either that or leave, and he was curious. He ducked down, knees digging into the dirt. From there he could see a man and a woman sitting on a bench and talking.

“Are you sure it’s necessary?” the man asked.

“I’m sure.” The woman was nervously clasping and unclasping her hands. “I saw them today. You won't see it, Paulo, but I saw it in the boy’s eyes. He has his father’s eyes.”

“He’s just a child. What can he-”

“Don’t you think I asked around? Tried to find out?” her voice was bitter. “There is something wrong in the school next block. A number of people have had their minds warped by the Mist, and one boy is missing. Tell me that doesn’t reek of tampering to you. He may be a child, but he’s not harmless. And Ry is a child too. She doesn’t know anything. I don’t want her to know either. And if they meet by accident… They’ll tear each other apart, Paulo. They’ll destroy each other before they know what they’re doing. They’re better off as far away from each other as they can be. I don’t care about the world. I just want my children to _live_.”

The man turned to her and gently held her hands. “Look, I know you don’t like demigods. But we were there. We _grew_ up there. They’re not the enemy.”

“We send them there,” the woman was very calm now. “And within a week either Lupa or Dionysus will know what they are, or at least what they are not. And what shall I do then? _Best_ case scenario, they will be allowed to live, as soldiers for Olympus. Most probably, they’ll just be killed on the spot. I won't have that. I didn’t play the cat-and-mouse game for seven years only to give up now. The gods can have whatever they want, but they won't have my children. Never.”

He saw his ball under the bush next to him, and crawled over to grab it. A twig snapped under his knees, the sound like a gunshot in the momentary silence. Both the adults got to their feet, instinctively turning towards the source of the sound. He cursed and ran.

Later, James would wonder what that had all been about. It was years before he understood what had really happened, and by then it was far too late.

***********************

**ONE YEAR AGO**

John Booth had been running Booth’s Garage and Automobile Repair Centre for years.

It was terribly dull work, replacing chains, fixing tyres, repairing engines, all day, every day. The only fun he ever used to have was ‘purchasing’ cars, giving them a new sheen, a license plate, a new color, a new price, and selling them off second hand. But there was only so long you did the same thing over and over until it lost its novelty. Nowadays, mostly the two kids who used to be helping hands were the ones actually running the place. Which left him free to focus on the local gossip.

He lit his cigarette and turned the page of the evening paper. The cigarette almost fell from his mouth.

“Dear Lord in heaven! Al, did you see the news?”

“Seeing as I am sweating under a car while you’re sitting up there with the newspaper, no.”

John huffed. The kid was a good worker, but she had a tongue sharp as the knife hidden up her jacket sleeve.

“They found two bodies. Warehouse in Harlem.”

“Oh, wow, I’m sure that’s new.” He could have sworn that sarcasm oozed out of the kid.

“It’s Eddie Jones and Joey Brown.”

“Well, well.” There was a short clang from underneath the car, followed by a string of swear words which would make a sailor blush. “Someone finally did them in. Why am I not surprised?”

“Who’re those two?” the other kid, what was her name again? Diana? Donna? Daisy! Walked in, wiping her hands on a rag. The only reason he gave those kids jobs was because they were desperate enough to agree to work for half-wages. He was going to hire a slightly older and less delicate boy, but Al had asked him to hire her. Why not? Al had been working there for almost four years now, and her salary had grown steadily with her age, but the new kid was still ready to work for peanuts.

No, he was not a miser, thank you very much.

“Long story.” He said gruffly. He detested explaining himself.

“Gang members.” Al called out. “Fourth Street Fighters. Which, in my opinion, is a stupid name.”

“Keep it down, idiot!” He didn’t want anyone knocking him off that night. Not so soon, anyway.

“They used to buy cars here.” Al ignored him, sliding out from underneath the car. “Buy them, use them for weird shit, trash them, buy new ones, etc, etc, etc. Deplorable people, but useful customers for the side business.”

“You mean the main business.” The kid quipped.

“Whatever, Defiance.”

“Daisy!”

“Whatever.”

“Does it say what happened?” Al asked.

“Shot. Point blank. Eddie through the head, Joey three times in the chest.”

“Who did it?” She asked curiously.

“Huh.” He crushed the cigarette stub under his shoe. “No one knows. No weapon. Probably thrown away somewhere.”

“A river or something, I guess.”

“Hmph.”

Al yawned and sat down against a wall. “I don’t think they’ll find anyone. Mostly it will be the Lions who did it.” The New York Lions were another street gang. “And then they’ll find someone from the Lions dead, and then someone from the Fighters dead, blah, blah, blah.”

“Weren’t _you_ working for the Fighters once, Al?” Daisy asked. “Helped them steal something?”

Al had somehow purloined a cigarette from his box. Whenever the kid was around, it was best to keep a hand on your wallet and never let it go. She lit it and tossed away the match. “Frankly, I’ll work for whoever gives me more money.”

She grabbed her jacket and stepped out to leave. “You coming, kiddo? Treat from me. Chinese? Maybe ice-cream later?”

“What’s the occasion?”

“I feel happy, that’s what. You coming or not?”

“Hell yeah I am.”

He couldn’t help but notice the tune Al was whistling as she went out. A country tune? It sounded familiar, the kind his brother-in-law from the Dales used to sing. What was it? "It's a fine murdering day, as balmy as May, And the sleuths from the village are gone…”

The kid had a ghastly sense of humor. He shook his head and turned the paper to the next page.

*******************

James knew he wasn’t an ordinary boy.

Normal boys didn’t learn Latin and Ancient Greek. Normal boys didn’t learn to wield swords. Normal boys didn’t have their hands burst into flames whenever they lost their temper.

Normal boys didn’t destroy whole buildings with a touch.

He studied the landscape around. The hills were strewn with boulders and stunted cedars, all shimmering in the hazy air. The sun beat down as if trying to hammer the countryside into a Celestial bronze shield. Sweat soaked his shirt. He could hear the drone of cicadas buzzing in the trees – a sleepy, otherworldly sound that made his eyes heavy. But he had work to do.

A few hundred meters away at the top of the nearest hill stood a cluster of ruins. They didn’t look like much – just some crumbling walls encircling the limestone shells of a few buildings – but, from somewhere within the ruins, tendrils of black ether curled into the sky, like a smoky squid peeking from its cave. _The House of Hades,_ he thought wryly. _Grand name for the mortals. Uninventive in our world._

The entire structure just looked like ruins, but he knew the truth; the temple had collapsed. Those annoying demigods had somehow managed to destroy an ancient place of power while trying to rescue their friends.

At least it made his job easier.

He blasted most of the rubble out of his way. Even after being destroyed, the place gave off a cold, unearthly aura, like in one of those horror movies other kids were so fond of. Skulls were stuck to some of the walls. Chattering voices whispered in his head.

_Come to us. Join us. Remember us._

_No._ He pushed them away. _I am the darkness. I am your master. I control you. You do not control me._

The place was a mess. As far as he could see, the strain of hosting the Doors of Death had been far too much for the ancient structure. It probably collapsed right after the demigods left.

Evidence of battle littered the place. Old swords, remnants of ghosts, the scent of blood- this place didn’t have a peaceful history. The pieces of rubble were huge, chunks of obsidian probably weighing tons, a nightmare for those poor mortals whose job was to clear it up.

But not for him. The wreckage simply dissolved on his touch.

He stared at the place where he had been told the giant Clytius was supposed to be standing. He and Pasiphae were probably dead. Not that it made any difference to him.

The Doors were gone; moved to another place. But the rift that they created was still there, it was permanent, barely closed, sealed only with the magic of that Titan Hecate.

Pathetic.

He crouched down and pressed his palm to the earth. The ground shuddered under his hand, as if Gaia herself were feeling that his touch was unnatural. He gritted his teeth and focused his thoughts on the ground. _Open. Come on. Open up._

A narrow fissure developed between his fingers, slowly widening and growing longer as he waited. He stood up with a shaky breath and staggered to one side as the rift grew wider, revealing a hole with no end.

He pulled out the bunched up folded papers from his pocket. If what they said was correct, if it was real…

That old fool Daedalus. He had a gold mine in his hand, he was just too stupid to realize it. Or too much of a coward.

A way right from Tartarus to the mortal world, without the Doors of Death. Without the reforming process done by monsters.

And yet… too many ifs.

Only one way to be sure.

He folded the papers and placed them in his pocket, hugged his arms close to his body and jumped.

********************

**PRESENT DAY**

Thalia Grace did _not_ want to go over the same discussion again.

It was bad enough for her ADHD brain once. Twice was a nightmare. Any more would make her jump off a cliff or stab herself with her arrows. However _did_ Zoe lead the Hunters for so long?

Yes, they were going to help protect Camp Jupiter. No, it didn’t matter that there were boys in the Legion. No, they were not allowed to maim anybody.

She strode into the forest to clear her head. Sometimes she wondered whether she had made a mistake in joining the Hunters. Sure, they had their advantages, and in the brief moments that she had loved it here, she had seen an ideal worth saving, but most of the times the blatant hate felt and expressed by most of the Hunters for boys or for any kind of affection made her feel disillusioned. More often than she would admit, she found herself missing the days when she, Luke and Annabeth used to be homeless trying to find Camp Half-Blood.

_When did it all go so wrong?_

She knew the answer, of course. It had gone downhill the moment she got turned into a tree. Luke had been bitter earlier too, but his fatal flaw- his inability to let go of his anger, would never have been triggered if the three of them had stayed together. It could have been genuinely wonderful, but instead it had descended into chaos.

There were times when she felt bitter, too. If her father could save her by turning her into a tree, why couldn’t he have used his master bolt to kill some of the monsters and buy them enough time for her to get to the camp? Now Luke was dead, she was stuck for eternity with the Hunters, and even Annabeth, little Annabeth, who had been like a younger sister to her, so much like Jason, was older than her.

And now Jason was dead too.

_Why didn’t you save him, father?_

_Was he not good enough?_

_Did he fail you in any way?_

_Or are we like your mortal flings, momentary toys and playthings, to be paid attention to when_ you _feel like it, discarded and abandoned the next moment?_

_Do you have a reply? Or are we just-_

Something flickered in the periphery of her vision. She drew her bow, completely alert, waiting for a sound, a moment, even a smell.

Nothing.

She stood still for almost two minutes, waiting for something to happen.

Still nothing.

_Just nerves._ She told herself. _My instincts haven’t been right since Jason died. It’s probably a mouse, or-  
_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Update schedules are wonky, but there will definitely be one chapter per week, bear with me.


	11. Chapter XI

**REYNA**

Reyna didn’t know what to think.

On one hand, they knew that they were being played in some way. On the other hand…

She hadn’t been able to sleep all night. Death while fighting a monster was one thing, stabbing someone from behind when they didn’t know about it was another. It was why, last year, when Gwen had been found with a pilum buried in her after the war games, she had intended to hunt down whoever had been such a rat. The fact that Gwen had come back from the dead was irrelevant. Trust was an important part of the Legion. Honorable death was acceptable, but death by deception-

But since when was there honor among thieves?

She heard a door of the room next to hers slam shut. She got up, gripping her spear and strapped a knife to the side of her leg. She gently opened her door and peered out. The corridor was dark, the tubelights switched off while everyone was asleep.

She knocked on the door next to hers. There was no reply, so she rapped it harder. Finally the door opened, framing Al in the doorway, an irritated expression on her face. “What?”

“Get in.” she growled, holding her spear against Al’s throat. “Don’t even think of doing anything.”

Al looked like she’d slapped her. “What? Are you fucking crazy?”

“Get. In. Hands where I can see them.”

Al raised her hands above her head and stumbled back. Reyna kept the point of her spear against her neck. Al staggered back onto the bed, falling rather than sitting on it. “I- I- What are you-”

“The truth. Now.” Reyna studied her. It looked like she had been out all night. Her usually messy curly hair was sticking damply to her forehead. Brown eyes stared at her warily. “What’s wrong?”

“Where have you been?”

Al shrugged. “Walked around a great deal. Snuck into a bar. Got bored, started a brawl, got alcohol spilt on my head by accident, headed back as soon as I wasn’t so out of it, and am currently being threatened by-”

“Enough.”

“What got you like this?”

Reyna rested the point of her spear below her chin. “The truth. Now.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The tip dug into the skin, drawing a thin trail of blood. Al’s hands were clenched tightly. “Look, I really don’t-”

“Whom did you kill, Al?”

Something flickered across her eyes for an instant. “No one. You’ve seen me, I can't fight-”

“You shot someone. Two people. In a warehouse. Then you tossed the gun into a river.”

The corners of her lip twitched. “What? You’re kidding, right?”

Reyna didn’t let up. “Did you?”

“You’ve been reading too many books, Praetor. Sometimes a dream is just a dream.”

“And why do you think it was a dream?”

Al snorted. “I’ve never been to Seattle in my life. It’s not like some old acquaintance popped up to have a chat. The only thing that would make you suspicious is one of those ridiculous prophetic stuff you guys dream about. Why can't you have normal crazy dreams like the rest of us do? You know, falling or being chased or whatever?”

“Is that all you have to say?”

“It is all that I know.”

“And the kid?”

“What about her?”

“Did you stab her?”

Al glared at her, eyes bright and blazing. “What?”

“Did. You. Stab her.”

Al moved so fast that if it weren’t for demigod reflexes, she would have been taken completely by surprise. Color had rushed into her cheeks in rage. “If you think,” her voice was hard as iron, “that I had anything to do with her death, then you are far more stupid than I gave you credit for.”

Reyna felt a surge of anger. “You think I’m stupid, and you end up on quests with me?”

“You think I care?” her eyes were like stones. “You think I care about the precious quest, or you and your merry band of bastard kids?” Reyna had spent enough time with pirates to know alcohol when she smelt it. Al positively reeked of it. “I owe you nothing, Praetor. I don’t have to do anything for you. The only reason I am still here is because we have a common goal.”

“Oh really?” her voice was sharp, the way it got when she was about to lose her temper.

“What else did you expect from me? Honor and loyalty? Being sworn to the cause? Ehhh macarena?”

She turned around to leave before she exploded. “You know, it gets harder to trust you each day, Al.”

She stomped off to her own room and slammed the door behind her. It was only when she sat down back on the bed and heard footsteps pass her door down the corridor that she realized that despite their conversation, she still knew nothing. And perhaps that was what Al had intended all along.

**********************

The next day, Al was already at the docks by the time she and Hazel got there. She was sitting with her feet dangling over the side, gaze fixed on the horizon. She got up when she heard them coming. “Nothing yet.” Her eyes were distant. “And, Hazel, I’m not sure Reyna passed it on, but sometimes dreams are just dreams.”

“I never told you it wasn’t mine.” Reyna said.

“No, but you didn’t argue with me too much, either. If it were yours, you would have argued with me far more. Oh, look, they’re here.”

They got on board in silence. Hazel frowned. “No one is here. Where are they?”

They drew their weapons and looked around.

“Hazel!” Nico waved from behind the cabin. He ran up to them. “Reyna, listen, this is important, we need to talk-”

“Where are the others?” asked Hazel.

“In the cabin. Do you two mind leaving us for the moment?”

Hazel nodded, heading towards the open door. Al followed.

She turned towards Nico. “What is it?”

Nico rubbed his palms nervously against his black jeans. “They know.”

“They know what?”

“Annabeth had a dream.” Nico swallowed. “About San Juan. She told Percy, and Percy told me. According to the person who sent it, you are responsible for patricide and not to be trusted on this quest.”

Rage blossomed within her. She didn’t mind being called standoffish. She didn’t mind people rolling their eyes at her beyond her back, or underestimating her.

But she would _not_ be called untrustworthy.

She’d spent her entire life hiding. Her journey, from Puerto Rico to Circe’s Island, from the pirates to Camp Jupiter, had been driven by nothing but her desire to flee from her past.

 _You can never flee from your crime._ Just like the ghosts had warned.

And now she was about to lose everything, everything she had worked for- friends, family, home, and quite possibly her life too, if news got out at Camp Jupiter.

The door of the cabin flew open and Al leaned out. “Guys, you might want to-” She noticed the expression on her face. She closed the door behind her and walked over to them. “This ultra-serious meeting going on in there- it’s about San Juan, isn’t it?”

“What do you know of San Juan?” Nico asked sharply.

“It’s okay, Nico.” Reyna pulled herself together. She was the daughter of a war goddess. She was the Praetor of Camp Jupiter. She would _not_ show weakness. “Al knows everything.”

Nico turned from one person to the other. “But how-”

“Long story.” Al grabbed her hand. “Come on, we need to go or they’ll think something is up.”

**********************

The cabin of the Pax wasn’t really meant to be occupied by more than six people at a time.

They’d only managed earlier by taking shifts so that there were at most four of them in the cabin at a time. Now, with everyone inside, it looked overcrowded, like one of the markets in San Juan. The yellow lamps cast flickering shadows on everyone’s faces as they sat in different positions on the cot. Al and Nico had still not entered. She wondered what was keeping them.

Reyna tried to judge the expressions of the people in front of her. Percy looked like he didn’t know what to do. Hazel was looking torn, and Annabeth’s expression was carefully neutral. The others looked confused, like they didn’t know what they were there for. Al and Nico entered a couple of minutes after her. Nico was sitting with clenched teeth. Al was sitting on the bed cross-legged like an eager preschooler. She noticed her looking and winked. _Dear gods, no Al,_ do not _do anything._

“Guys, can we have some privacy?” Annabeth turned to the newer campers. “Ryan, Jakob, Al, Lavinia. Give us a moment.”

Al leaned forward. “Keeping secrets, are we, Chase?”

“Respecting privacy.” Annabeth said evenly. “We don’t want to spread wanton rumors without proof.”

Al leaned back on the cot, crossing one leg over the other. “An accusation, then. Against…” she looked at all of them. “against Praetor Stiff here. What did she do?”

“You can read minds now?” Percy raised an eyebrow.

“Old-school carnie stuff. What do you think I used to do in carnivals? Dress like a clown and dance?”

“I can imagine you doing that.” Reyna said. She shot Al a look. _What do you think you’re doing?_

“And that is relevant how?” Annabeth asked.

“That line of the prophecy. _Secrets and mistrust birth blame._ You’re keeping secrets from us, which leads to mistrust, which is… inconvenient on a quest, or so I’m told.” She shrugged. “If you’re going to say something, say it in front of us. _All_ of us.”

“Some things,” Annabeth rubbed her fingers in circles against her knee. “Are better left alone.”

“I lost my best friend to this stupid quest.” Al snapped. “I knew her for years, longer than any of you. I saw her grow up from a skinny eight year old to the person she is- she was.” Her expression had turned hard as stone. “And you expect me to bob my head and say ‘yes ma’am’ and do whatever you ask? We’re just supposed to follow you guys because you’ve been demigods longer than the rest of us?” Her tone was slightly angry now. If she didn’t know better, Reyna would have thought that her anger was real. Or maybe it was. “I don’t know about these guys, but I’ve been led like a dog with a leash this whole quest without being told what the hell is happening and what exactly I’m supposed to do. And I’ve been seeing weird stuff about all of you in my dreams. Like a king following the ghost dude around. Except he was dead, and di Angelo here was muttering about exchanging someone’s soul for another person’s. And then he did some stuff, and a living guy turned into a ghost. _A living person.”_

 _Bryce Lawrence,_ Reyna thought.

“Whatever it was, it was bloody creepy. If you guys say that dreams are true,” She raised her chin defiantly. “I think I deserve to know what’s going on.”

“So do we.” Ryan said. “We’ve been treated like spare tyres long enough.”

Percy looked unnerved. “Minos. That was years ago.”

“I was different then.” Nico said in a low voice. “Bitter. Angry. But I never really killed anyone for it.”

Reyna looked at Nico. He looked like he always did, no sign of hesitation on his face. She supposed that was what made him able to go to both camps without telling them of each other’s existence.

“But it was true.” Annabeth pointed out. “In part, at least.”

“But not all of it.” Nico said. “It’s been embellished.”

“Which is why they need to leave.”

“Which is why we need to stay.” Al pointed out. “Honesty. Come on, if the former crook is telling you to be honest, you got to be honest.”

It took her a second to realize where this was going. If Al’s dream about Nico was wrong, if Hazel was wrong about Al, then it would follow that the dream about Reyna was wrong too. Discrediting through association. That was what they must have been discussing outside before they came in, like an improvised play. She felt a surge of gratefulness for the two of them.

Percy turned to her. “It’s your call. Al is right, this is about you.”

Al gave her a look. _Go along with it._

She could do that.

“They can stay.” She kept her voice as calm as possible. “Nothing to hide.” If word got out, no one would be in the dark anyways.

Annabeth looked extremely interested in her toes. “Well, in one of our dreams, a goddess made a very serious accusation against you. According to her, you-” she hesitated. “You murdered your father.”

The statement was followed by an uproar from the newer demigods. Eight people bursting into conversation at once in closed quarters made it seem like someone had set off firecrackers in the already crowded cabin.

“Enough!” Annabeth said. “Can we _please_ discuss this quietly?”

Al yawned. “Maybe. But honestly, if I hear one more charge of murder, I’m gonna flip.”

Percy frowned. “One more? What?”

“Oh, they didn’t tell you?” her tone was conversational, as if they were discussing the weather. “Apparently, jewelry girl here dreamt that I somehow murdered two full-grown men and then tossed the weapon into a river. Praetor Stiff over there threatened me with a spear. Who’s next, Probatio Bubble-gum?”

“Hey!” Lavinia complained, though she was still chewing her bubble-gum.

“Wait.” Annabeth interrupted. “So someone sent _you_ a dream as well?” she asked Hazel.

Hazel looked uncomfortable. “It was a couple of days ago. I wasn’t sure, and I didn’t want to make a ruckus out of it.”

“Wait,” Nico twisted the skull ring on his finger. “First Hazel, then Annabeth…” he looked around. “It’s not a coincidence, is it?”

“Well, in case anyone is interested, I didn’t murder anyone.” Al stretched her arms. “And dear ol’ Praetor here told me she ran away from home when she was very young, so-” she shrugged. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“You did?” Percy looked curious.

Reyna scowled. “Yes, I did, Jackson. Got a problem?”

Percy raised his hands in surrender. “Just asking.”

“Can we focus?” Nico asked. “Annabeth, do you think someone is trying to divide us?”

“It’s possible.” Annabeth said cautiously. “If both the accusations are untrue-”

“Of course they are.” Reyna allowed a hint of anger to show in her voice. “What kind of person do you think I am?”

“Can we all calm down, please?” Jakob spoke up for the first time since the discussion began. “Thank you.”

“A son of Discordia calming things down?” Lavinia popped a pink bubble of her bubble-gum. “That’s new.”

“As if you’ve been super-helpful here.”

“I am not. I’m never useful. We’ve been in the same cohort for a year, surely you know that-”

“Is everything a joke to you?”

“Funny things are.”

“Someone _died_ -”

“Hey!” Ryan grabbed Jakob’s shoulder. “Stop it, both of you. You aren’t helping.”

“All right,” he muttered. “Whatever.”

“The point is,” Annabeth continued. “Looks like someone is trying to divide us.”

“So we ignore our dreams?” Nico asked.

“No.” Reyna frowned. “We discuss them. With _everyone_. No secrets. No lies. We tell everyone, and we only come to conclusions after. Is that all right?”

“Deal.” Percy said. “Sorry about that, Reyna.” Annabeth seemed to be a different story. She was still looking at Reyna with a thoughtful look, as if to say _I don’t believe you._ Reyna didn’t break eye contact. It would just make her look guilty. Annabeth turned away when Percy poked her side.

Reyna shrugged. _Close call._ She looked at Al and inclined her head slightly. _Thank_ you.

Al grinned from the shadows and gave her a two-fingered salute. “If we’re done,” she rose from the cot, “excuse me. I have important business to get to. I plan to sulk all afternoon, followed, perhaps, by an evening of Byronic brooding and a night-time of dissipation.”

Annabeth rolled her eyes. “You stole that from The Clockwork Prince.”

Al grinned as she left. “It is not easy to be different, and even less so to be unique _.”_

“Clockwork Princess!” Annabeth called out as Al shut the door.

As the rest of them left, Annabeth grabbed her by the cape. “I know you’re hiding something.” She whispered in her ear. “You, Al, and Nico. I know that the three of you led this conversation. Maybe something was exaggerated in that dream, but there was a grain of truth in it somewhere. Maybe you didn’t kill your father, but there was something else you did. What are you hiding, Arellano?”

Reyna plucked the cape from her grasp. “Nothing. And it’s _Ramirez_ -Arellano.” She corrected as she shut the door and hoped that she hadn't just made a huge mistake.


	12. Exam, exam, wherefore art thou such a pain?

Hey guys! So, this isn't a chapter. It's more like an author's note.

I'm putting this series on hold until the end of March. I've got exams the whole of March, school exams and external exams clashing together, so I won't be able to devote as much time to writing out chapters for this as I generally do. Hopefully, after a month, I will have a nice backlog of chapters so I don't have to take a break again.

On another tangent entirely, I'm thinking of writing two more one-shots. After the positive response for Nothing Be Interposer Twixt Us Twain, I'm thinking of actually sitting down and typing up those ideas I have instead of just thinking about them. Hopefully, 'What Happened in Albania' and 'Remember Who Is Watching' will be posted this week, or maybe the next. Taking a break from Blood For Blood will give me enough breathing space to write those.

I originally intended this to be a part of Chapter Notes while I posted a new chapter, but the one I have typed up is far from ready. It's just not good enough. Hopefully, I'll be able to edit it well enough by the time I update it. I'll clear this out and replace it with the chapter probably around 30th March, if anyone is even still reading this story.

Peace out,

TheStarkster.


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